Pie Tshibanda: André Baillon : Le Belge de Marly (2009)

The life of André Baillon (1875-1932) was cut short by his fifth (and obviously successful) suicide attempt. An orphan at the age of six (his father having died when he was only four months old), his life was fraught by his own frustrations, his guilt, and his inability to resolve his love life: at one time he was living with two of his women (Marie and Germaine) on different floors.

Psychologist Pie Tshibanda's critical biography was a rare find: this book is completely unavailable via the internet, there's not even a copy held at BNF, and his own publisher's site doesn't recognise it! Oddly though, I've found a link to Tshibanda advertising the book (in 2009) here. This is its tenth anniversary.

As Tshibanda says, as a 'man of colour' (he comes from the Congo), he wanted to write a book about another 'man of colour' (Baillon was red-haired as well as full of complexes), and wanted to show that he wasn't mad as is normally perceived by critics. This is a very well researched book which details Baillon's books in the light of the people and the events in his life, his living with a prostitute, his stays in psychiatric hospitals, etc. Baillon comes through all this as not exactly normal (there is of course no normal, and we are all neurotic in some way) but as someone who is writing about the problems of his life out of therapy, necessity, or mere (partly changed) autobiography. Fascinating stuff.