Cécile Vanderstraeten

Cécilia Vanderstraeten, née de Reuck, was born in Ghent, Belgium. She studied painting and drawing at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, and took private lessons in singing.

She is active in the literary life of Ghent, and has contact with many Flemish and French authors. In 1947, she married Albert Vanderstraeten. After publishing a novella, Age tendre et tête de bois, she wrote her first novel, Porte close (1969), which won the Premier prix découverte prose aux Nouveaux cahiers the jeunesse à Bordeaux.
Her second novel was Student in Ghent: According to True Events in May 1968 (1971), which she translated into French as Étudiant: après .. mai 1968 (1974). For this translation she received the Prix de la Sorbonne.
She also translated Felix Timmerman's Miss Sympforosa, and collaborated on Gerd de Ley's book, The Quoted Woman (1984).

She paints landscapes, interiors, and portraits, and is involved in making collages.