Camille Lemonnier (1844-1913), the Belgian novelist and art critic, was the founder of the Belgian literary renaissance. Most of his fiction was influenced by the work of the French writer Émile Zola, and is frank and naturalistic in its descriptions of characters and analysis of their behaviour.
His first successful novel was “Un mâle” in 1881, a vivid description of a rural setting. “Le petit homme de Dieu” (The Little Man of God) from 1902 is considered to be one of his best works. Among his writings on Belgian art is “Histoire des beaux-arts en Belgique” from 1887.