David Gr�goire Van Reybrouck is a Flemish Belgian author. He writes historical fiction, literary non-fiction, novels, poetry, plays and academic texts. He has received several Dutch literary prizes, including AKO Literature Prize and Libris History Prize. He was born into a family of florists, bookbinders and artists. His father, a farmer's son, spent five years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a railway engineer immediately after independence. Van Reybrouck is a cultural historian, archaeologist and writer. He holds a doctorate from Leiden University. His first book, De Plaag, was a cross between a travelogue and a literary whodunnit set in post-apartheid South Africa. It received several awards, including the prize for the best Flemish debut in 2002 and a shortlist nomination for the Gouden Uil, one of the leading literary prizes in the Low Countries. It was translated into Afrikaans, French and Hungarian. A longtime op-ed writer for the Flemish national newspaper De Morgen, Van Reybrouck has co-edited a volume on the federal future of Belgium and a thought-provoking pamphlet, Pleidooi voor populisme, which has stirred quite some debate. 

September 11th, 1971 in Bruges (Age 53)