Giraud was born Emile Albert Kayenbergh in Leuven, Belgium.

In 1885, Giraud became a member of La Jeune Belgique, a Belgian nationalist literary movement that met at the Café Sésino in Brussels.

His published works include Pierrot lunaire: Rondels bergamasques (1884), a poem cycle based on the commedia dell'arte figure of Pierrot, and La Guirlande des Dieux (1910).

The composer Arnold Schönberg set a German-language version (translated by Otto Erich Hartleben) of selections from his Pierrot Lunaire to innovative atonal music.

In a different, late romantic style, some of Hartleben's translations found their way into the vocal works of Joseph Marx.