Xavier Hanotte is a Belgian writer. He was born in Mont-sur-Marchienne in 1960. He lives near Brussels. He studied the German language and entered a literary career through translation. He translated Dutch authors such as Hubert Lampo, and was particularly attached to the young English poet, Wilfred Owen, who died in 1918 a few days before the armistice. With "Manière Noire", published in 1995, Hanotte commenced a romantic cycle around the character of Barthelemy Dussert, a Brussels police inspector who would become the literary alter ego of the writer. Dussert also appeared in (1998), (2008), and (2000, ) which takes place on the Somme front during the First World War, and features a young poet named Nigel Parsons. The Great War also forms the backdrop of (2002). The 2010 novel , set in an imaginary country, was compared to the work of Julien Gracq and Dino Buzzati.