Pol Demade

Pol Demade (1863–1936) was a Belgian writer who also published under the pen name Jean Suis.

Pol Demade
Born(1863-08-13)August 13, 1863
Comines, Hainaut, Belgium
DiedSeptember 16, 1936(1936-09-16) (aged 73)
Ostend, West Flanders, Belgium
Pen nameJean Suis
OccupationPhysician
LanguageFrench
EducationMinor Seminary, Roeselare; Diocesan College, Kortrijk
Alma materCatholic University of Louvain
PeriodFin de siècle
Genrenovel, short story
Subjectmacabre
Literary movementCatholic literary revival

Life

Paul François Charles Demade was born to a French family living in Comines, Belgium, on 13 August 1863.[1] He was educated at the junior seminary in Roeselare, where he became friends with Albrecht Rodenbach, and at the diocesan college in Kortrijk, before studying medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven.[1] His interest in literature was sparked by reading Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, and he began contributing to the society pages of Le Patriote under the pen name Jean Suis.[1] His first novel, Religieuse, soeur Magdala (1891), was self published.[2]

He obtained a two-year scholarship to the Collège de France and completed his medical training in Lille. Besides his medical profession and literary activity he also engaged in political discussions, coming into the orbit of Henry Carton de Wiart, Jules Renkin and other proponents of Christian democracy. He took an active role in the Catholic Congress in Mechelen in 1891.[2]

He was a contributor to the reviews La Lutte and Le Drapeau, and together with Carton de Wiart and Henry Moeller he founded the review Durendal, of which he was sole proprietor 1894–1897. He took an interest in the reform of education, and especially of the teaching of languages and literature in secondary schools.[1] From 1901 to 1924 he was the editor of a popularising medical review, Jardin de la santé (the garden of health) that he had founded himself.[1]

With the German occupation of Belgium during World War I, Demade became a refugee in the Netherlands. He died in Ostend on 16 September 1936.[1]

Publications
Fiction
  • Religieuse, Soeur Magdala (1891)
  • La Passion catholique: Une âme princesse (1893)
  • Contes inquiets (1899)
  • L'âme féminine: La grâce, le dévouement, la tendresse (1907)
  • Les âmes qui saignent (1910)
  • Boutiques d'idées (1910)
  • L'ombre étoilée (1912)
  • Le cortège des Ombres (1925)
  • Les âmes nues (1938)
Non-fiction
  • Le programme du doctorat en médecine (1889)
  • La littérature catholique contemporaine: Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Léon Bloy, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Ernest Hello (1893)
  • De l'éducation à l'anarchie (1895)
  • Le rôle du médecin dans l'éducation (1904)
  • Carnets du bon Samaritain: Notes sur ce qui doit être fait tout de suite, en famille, contre les petites misères de l'existence (1910)
  • Un projet de bibliothèque familiale chrétienne (1913)
  • Lettres à ma filleule: Essai d'hygiène morale (1922)
  • La bonne Samaritaine à côté de ceux qui souffrent (1926)
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References
  1. Françoise Châtelain, "Demade, Paul François Charles, dit Pol", Nouvelle Biographie Nationale, vol. 2 (Brussels, 1990), 119-121.
  2. Jean-Baptiste Baronian, Pol Demade, un petit maître belge du fantastique, communication to the Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique, 13 September 2003.
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