Henry Bauchau

Henry Bauchau, born in 1913, is a Belgian prose writer, poet, and playwright, in addition to his work as a psychoanalyst. Born in Mechelen, a Belgian city between Brussels and Antwerp, Bauchau served Belgium during World War II. Following the war, he founded a finishing school in Switzerland and began publishing his work.

Bauchau’s first book, Géologie, was published in 1958. This was followed by works like the plays Genghis Khan (1960) and La Machination (1969), anthologies of poetry ( La Chine Intérieure, 1974), journals, and novels, such as Œdipe sur la route (1990; Oedipus on the Road). In Oedipus on the Road, as The New York Times Book Review says, Bauchau uses his psychoanalysis to tell of Oedipus’s journey to Colonus while “giving it new significance… touch[ing] on up-to-date themes like multiculturalism, feminism and psychotherapy.”

Bauchau has won several French and Belgian literary prizes, and he currently lives in France.