Hugo Claus

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — Hugo Claus, an artist, poet, playwright and novelist whose books painted a scathing picture of repression and hypocrisy in bourgeois Flanders, died Wednesday, his wife said. He was 78.
Claus, who had Alzheimer's disease, died by euthanasia at Middelheim Hospital in Antwerp. "He himself picked the moment of his death and asked for euthanasia," his wife, Veerle De Wit, said in a statement.
Claus produced about 200 works during his career but was best known for his classic "The Sorrow of Belgium" — a scathing attack on social injustice, stifling family relationships and Roman Catholic repression in his native Flanders in northern Belgium.
The partly autobiographical work defined his career and shot him to prominence on the international scene.
Often writing out of anger and guilt, Claus relied on pitiless realism in his work.
Claus also directed several movies and, as a painter, belonged to the Cobra group, centering on spontaneous, intuitive painting.