Ik heb de liefde liefgehad: het leven van Alice Nahon

This study is a biography of the once famous and bestselling Flemish poet Alice Nahon (1896-1933). Her rise to fame began shortly after the publication of her first volume of poems, Vondelingkens, in 1920. At the same time she was mythologized by her entourage (first and foremost by her father, who was also her publisher). Nahon herself - although sometimes a bit reluctantly - also contributed to her own muth, which depicted her as a sickly, melancholic, half-saintly young woman who wrote simple, touching and sincere poetry. However, that she was not a 'saint', as her entourage would have us believe, became apparent following the publications of, among other, Eric Defoort (1991) and Ria van den Brandt (1996). Nonetheless it was clear that more and thorough research was needed to straighten out some facts. Based on such research, this book shows that Alice Nahon was far from a saint. She was a woman, who after having needlessly spent more than seven years in sanatoriums, grabbed her freedom and went in search of happiness. The story of her life is one of literary success and financial distress, of numerous love affairs and permanent health problems, of living to the full and dying young.