Jozef Adriaan Geeraerts was born on February 23, 1930 in Antwerpen, as an only
child of Frans Geeraerts (May 29, 1904), first sailor, later garage holder and
owner of a taxi company, and Anna van der Heiden (November 15, 1904), needlewoman
and owner of a clothing shop. Jef gets a bourgeois education being a child of
well-to-do parents. Already in 1938 he is transferred from the Municipal Boys
school to the French "Onze Lieve Vrouwe" college, because the first
school was not decent enough. The narrow-minded bourgeois environment
of the main part of his family, and the hypocritical and the extreme austere
atmosphere of the college made of him an in himself turned, 
self-willed boy who acts independent very early and who finds only his relaxation
with his grandfather Janus, a man who not gave a hoot about bourgeois decency
and who received the warmest affection of Jef, and in the woods of Brecht, where
his parents bought a estates in 1941. The love for nature and the individual
resistance against the bourgeois social order are polar marks that will put
a stamp on his later literary work.
The years during the war were a very quit period for the young Geeraerts. In
1948 he terminates - after some taken correctional measures - his study (Greek-Latin
humaniora with the Jesuits). He registers at the Colonial School and becomes
licentiate in Polical and Administration Sciences in 1952. During these years
(in fact since 1946) he discovers the bodily love and leads a fairly loose and
free life, what results in a remark of his director that he best should marry
before starting a succesful career in Belgium-Congo. That is what he did, after
first having served his duty from '52 until '54 as a reserve officer in the
Belgium army in Germany. 
In Congo he was assistant district administrator for five years. He hade to
manage the district Bumba legally and also administratively, make sure that
roads were build etc. In this function he often gets into contact with the local
population, and in this way he learns to know the psychology of the black people.
This enables him to close friendships with them and his orders enforced very
quickly. He discovers also the pure, untouched nature an the intense wild primal
life. These discoveries - during his return in the Westersn culture-
lead to his known awareness crises that urged him to write and that lie at the
roots of his therapeutical authorship. 
When in 1959 two hostile tribes, the Baluba and the Lulua restarted their ancient
feud oude vete and started to kill each other, it is reserve lieutenant Jef
Geeraerts who's being in charge of a peace keeping platoon which has to accomplish
a buffer zone, a no mans land that will keep the two tribes separated. Knowing
the fact that the Baluba and the Lulua still were able to find each other new
combats started. In 1960 Jef got seriously injured after his platoon was ambushed.
Not long after the riots, that will lead to Congo's independence on June 30, 1960, increased to such an extend that a lot of white people hastily left the country. Geeraerts, who realises the uselessness of a further stay, follows the others in August and arrives upset in Belgium, where his family already arrived some months ago.
Jef uses the next two years for aimless walking around (Jef has a hard time finding a new job because of the big rush of civil servants from the former colonies; in principle he is not really looking because he can live from the half-pay, which will be paid to him being a former Congo civil servant during the next six years), reading and thinking about the situation of humans in the Western society - and about his situation in particular.
It is very hard for him to adjust to the mechanical rhythm of the curbed consumption culture, which he rejects because of her mentality. This crisis, which is strongly influenced by his marriage problems, makes him look for solitude. He writes his first novel Heet Water (that was never published) in these circumstances, and shortly after that his first novel Ik ben maar een neger in the literairy world, (however the first story he wrote, De Taaie, stems from 1958). He notices that his language skills are not good enough and thats why, but merely to escape the depressing atmosphere of his family live, he starts to study German philology in 1962 at the Free University of Brussels. According to Jef the professor and filosopher Leopold Flam attracted him the most. The colleges about awareness contributed to the fact that Jef will start to write his Gangreen series.
During these four years at the University he leaves his wife and his three children (1963) and writes Schroot, Zonder Clan, Het verhaal van Matsombo, De troglodieten and De zeven doeken der schepping. When he finishes his studies the granting of half-pay expired (however he never knew money problems: one should never lose touch with the fact that his parents were well-to-do and and are helping him from time to time ). Nevertheless he almost doesn't make use of his certificate; after only a few days of teaching he already runs off the teaching. He becomes temporarily the editor of among other things Elseviers Weekblad, for whom he reviews some books and interviews some writers. His applies his knowledge of languages to top-up his budget: he translated about five books from English and French. In the meanwhile he naturally keeps on writing himself and so in 1968 his first Gangreen book emerges: Black Venus, which acts about the wild and erotic life of a Assistant districs administrator, named Jef Geeraerts. A scandal bursts out (the press and some critics are accusing him being a racist and pornographically), Espcially after two worth mentioning events, that are all the better noticeable because the state - The system - each time is responsible for the incident: in October 1969 the book is given the three annual 'Staatsprijs voor Verhalende Proza' award, and almost a month later the book is taken out of the Corman book shop (in Brussels) for a short time by the Belgian justice department.
Also Gangreen 2 - De goede moordenaar, which describes the adventures
of the commander of a peace keeping platoon in Congo, causes a row; the army
reacts furious mainly because of the alleged truth of te story and the afterthoughts
of the activities of the Belgium para troopers during the liberation of the
white people in Stanleystad, 1964. The press publishes the first reactions,
and again Jef gets the best and cheapest publicity for his books. The moral
objections against the army, which he got during the writing of Gangreen
2, led furthermore to his exemption as reserve officer. 
Nowadays Jef Geeraerts uses his time almost exclusively with writing, traveling
and especially with his new and only wife Eleonore, which he married in 1978.
Systematically he investigates his 'gangreens' (his childhood, his first marriage,
etc.), and writes books about it.