Forensic pathologist Philippe Boxho likes to ask people “why shouldn’t we laugh about death?” But gallows humor is just one of the ingredients that the surprise literary sensation brings to his macabre line of storytelling.
In 33 years as a medical examiner in Belgium’s eastern Liege region, Boxho has performed hundreds of autopsies — his attention to detail bringing to light homicide cases that would otherwise have remained undetected.
Boxho has become a surprise star of the book world in Belgium and France, distilling his unusual line of work into taut collections of short stories, each one 15 pages or less.
Photo: AFP
Anchored in real life, the writing is unflinching and darkly-humorous, but the 59-year-old Boxho also seeks to impart some of his passion for a little-known, but crucial, profession.
The enthusiasm is palpable as the pathologist described the “excitement of being there at the start of an investigation,” of pulling on his sturdy dishwashing gloves and white coveralls to begin working.
It’s a way, he said of his work, “to give voice to the dead one last time.”
Photo: AFP
Boxho’s observations have revealed the most unusual of circumstances for a person’s demise — like the 60-something woman who had her throat slashed by her son’s pitbull terrier, that she had exceptionally gone to feed.
Another time he established how a farmer was trapped by a bull he did not see surge from the stable shadows. Multiple fractures to the torso and limbs showed how the hapless victim was crushed by a beast weighing in at 1.2 tonnes.
The idea of writing came to Boxho in 2021, triggered by the success of a post by Belgian channel RTBF, in which he recounted three striking anecdotes.
Encouraged, he decided to set down in writing more of the stories pulled from his more than three decades in forensics — which until then had been shared only with students at the medical school where he teaches.
It was an instant hit: published almost back-to-back, his three books have together sold some 740,000 copies, including almost 200,000 for the latest one released in late August, whose title translates as “Looking death in the face.”
“It’s extraordinary for a work of non-fiction,” said a spokesperson for Kennes, a small Belgian publisher that was struggling to make ends meet until it struck gold with Boxho.
In France, his latest book is among the season’s non-fiction bestsellers, with talks underway on an English edition of his work.
’I RESPECT THE BODY’
At a book-signing event at a former mining site in Blegny, near Liege, Boxho drew a full house of enthusiasts.
“It’s fascinating to hear him talk because he’s passionate about what he does,” said Marie Lou Collard, a political science student who was among the readers in the audience.
She came across Boxho via his videos posted on TikTok and YouTube, and sought out his essays to find out more.
In all of Boxho’s real-life stories, dating back sometimes decades, the identities have been changed in keeping with medical confidentiality rules.
“I respect the body I have in front of me,” Boxho said. “It belongs to a person I don’t know.”
“What I laugh about is death and the ways that people die,” he said. “It’s a bit cynical, but that’s the way I am. If you don’t like it, don’t read my books.”
Many of his cases have involved women killed by their partners. Sometimes it is a parent killed by a child — or almost killed, as in one extraordinary case Boxho shared with the crowd in Blegny.
Late one night, a woman entered her father’s bedroom with a revolver, intent on murdering him. She fired the entire barrel at him, and left him for dead.
But the autopsy later showed the suspected murder victim was already dead when she shot him — of a brain hemorrhage that occurred just moments earlier — and the daughter was cleared as a result.
“Criminal law requires certainties,” said Boxho, who argued that defending his profession, whose numbers have dwindled dramatically in recent years in Belgium, is also a way of ensuring better justice for all.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had