Belgitude

Notice that you are now assumed to speak several languages as you will be taken
surfing the internet on a multi-lingual basis!

Note for those who want to learn French: a survival kit

I warmly recommend the short guide to French conversation by A.P. Magnus. Your browser will need to support playing sound (.wav) files.
Alternatively you can visit A.P. Magnus's homepage. You will find there a strange piece of Belgian literature too.

Francis Dannemark

(I'm confident he wouldn't mind being introduced to you in English)
Unexpectedly, F. Dannemark doesn't appear in the list of famous Belgians
so I thought I should give him the credit he deserves.

For English speakers, there is a translation of a piece of Mémoires d'un angle maladroit
Alternatively, English speakers may also want to discover a selection of Belgian writers on the same site
Les francophones quant à eux peuvent consulter une une sélection d'extraits de textes de Francis Dannemark
...and even though I don't understand anything to that one, there seems to be some information in Hungarian about him (for my Hungarian friends!)

Un peu de tout

Even in the US they like so much our beers that the ones they brew they call New Belgium !
There's a wierd guy who draws cats et qui fait le clown chez Drukker. Before starting to be popular in France, he used to pretend to be a meteorologist on Belgian television and for many years he was Docteur Philippe G. Lecteurs francophones, vous pouvez également lire que faire de ses cinq dernières minutes ou le chat et autres turlupinades.
When I iron some clothes (that's not so often) I sometimes happen to listen to les snuls... Alternatively I may listen to Torremolinos by Sttellla.
I remember from my childhood my parents listening to Blusette by Toots Thielemans. You may also want to listen to the warm, wonderful, pittoresque interview of Toots (in Flemish). For playing these audio file, you should have realplayer installed.
It might well be that Manneke pis (more) is not the most famous Belgian (abroad) and that Tintin speaks even more languages. Canadians certainly know about Tintin too. Well, if you don't know either of them at least I'm sure you've heard of Hercule Poirot.
There's also another guy claiming to be the first Belgian having wandered in space. You can read everything about Dirk Frimout.
There's an official site for Jacques Brel. Je vous conseille aussi la section Brel-par-Brel sur cet autre site.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much to read on the internet about Marcel Broodthaers. Something about the museum, anche qualchosa in Italiano.
Personnages de papier, mais aussi villes de papier: les cités obscures.
Since I have architect friends who gratiously keep my wine in their cellar, I ought to remind you that this guy too was Belgian: Victor Horta. There's a museum dedicated to him, located in his former living and working place. And a gallery of Art Nouveau buildings.
Some painters: René Magritte, Hieronymus Bosch, Paul Delvaux and James Ensor.
Last but definitely not least, I can argue that Julio Cortazar was born in Brussels for having an excuse to include him in here. The official argentinian page, again for Spanish readers, quelques commentaires sur Cortazar, please read an excerpt from Hopscotch, quatre pages sur Cortazar.