Franz Hellens

|birth_place=Brussels, Belgium |death_date= |death_place=Brussels, Belgium |occupation=novelist, poet and critic }} Franz Hellens, born Frédéric van Ermengem (8 September 1881, in Brussels – 20 January 1972, in Brussels) was a prolific Belgian novelist, poet and critic. Although of Flemish descent, he wrote entirely in French, and lived in Paris from 1947 to 1971. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.

He is known as one of the major figures in Belgian magic realism (''fantastique quotidien''), and as the indefatigable editor of ''Signaux de France et de Belgique'' (later ''Le Disque vert''). The only work translated into English is ''Mémoires d'Elseneur'' ("Memoirs from Elsinore", 1954).

His father, Émile van Ermengem, was the bacteriologist who discovered the cause of botulism. His younger brother was the writer François Maret (Frans van Ermengem). Provided by Wikipedia