He attended high school there at the Damiaancollege and graduated in Germanic philology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

He earns a living as a teacher there until his career break in 1995 after being granted a scholarship as a writer.

Gruwez' work is sometimes considered to belong to the neoromantic movement in response to the new realism of the 60s, with its typical emphasis on the emotions of life, love, disease, decay and death.

But in Luuk Gruwez' work this kind of romance is always tempered by a portion of (self) irony.

Tuur Florizoone [nl] and Jessa Wildemeersch composed music for these nominated poems.