Flanders Literature helps publishers and festival organisers find that one particular title or author that is the perfect fit for their list or audience. So take a good look around, we present a selection of the finest literature from Flanders. If you like what you see, please get in touch with us for further information.
Holes beneath the waterline the discourse about the superiority of Western norms and values.
Knack
Rachida Aziz dips her pen in vitriol in the best tradition of literary polemic to give the established order a good dressing down. Every day she is confronted with how it feels not to belong. Aziz fights the constraints of society and writes about what she describes as her own process of decolonisation.
When we hear ‘Japan’, we tend to think of geishas, samurai and sumo wrestlers populating a country wedded to ancient customs and traditions. Japan expert Luk Van Haute paints a picture of Japanese society as far more diverse than some would have us believe.
Van den Broeck has a very keen eye. But she also has a great mind. ****
De Standaard
Charlotte Van den Broeck is primarily known as a poet – in that capacity she opened the guest of honour presentation by Flanders and the Netherlands at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2016 – but ‘Bold Ventures’ is her extraordinary and highly distinctive debut as a non-fiction writer.
Wonderfully strange and strangely wonderful, an epic dream captured in superbly meticulous detail
Shaun Tan
A paper boat is launched in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It makes a long journey, meeting the strangest of beings, passing between towering mangroves and braving a devastating storm. In ‘Wanderer’, his debut, Peter Van den Ende presents a wordless spectacle of pure imagination.
A rich novel, rich in ideas, in words, in images, in sentences that enfold you and engulf you.
De Leeswelp on ‘Over Sea’
Brothers Luca and Berio are inseparable. Their trapeze act is one of the highlights of the travelling circus they belong to. At the top of the tent trust between them is literally of vital importance. ‘All Things Light’ is a tender story set against a very dark backdrop, with Mussolini and his Blackshirts in power. The threat that has permeated every part of Italian life now also seeps into the circus on the fringes of society. A filmic and poetic book.
Vermeire penetrates to the core of Monet’s artistry
De Standaard
Claude Monet immortalised his love for his garden in hundreds of paintings: we all know his world-famous waterlilies. In much of Vermeire’s work plants, flowers, trees and animals occupy an important place, so she is the perfect illustrator to capture Monet’s explosions of colour in a picture book.
Jan Bouvaert is a man with ambition and a painter trained in Italy. On his return to Antwerp, he and his wife build up both his business and his reputation. Spruyt uses baroque images to create a fictitious biography that also pokes fun at the ego of artists and poses questions about what gives meaning to life.
Penelope is a surgeon on the Syrian front. Returning home is becoming increasingly difficult. While her daughter is growing up and worries about the size of her nose, Penelope tries to save human lives. In dynamic watercolour compositions with dialogues that reveal razor-sharp observation, Vanistendael wonders how to deal with a choice that is not a real choice at all.
Dino is thirteen when he and his father have to start life afresh. While Dino struggles with terrible hormonal acne and would love to be Luke Perry of Beverly Hills 90210, his father is slowly falling to pieces. Dieter VDO’s signature cartoonesque figures in eccentric colours produce a deeply human story, one that is both tragicomic and recognisable.
The master of animal illustrations and the king of animal stories come together in this inimitable book. In seventeen stories we meet animals who would like to be different, until they realize how special they already are. Both visually and in its storytelling, this is a delightful book.
Having concluded that we’ve never lived so long, so prosperously and so peacefully, philosopher of science Maarten Boudry takes on those he calls doom-mongers and cultural pessimists. The world has never been in a better shape than today, and Maarten Boudry is convinced that the best is yet to come, if only we put our minds to it.
'Here' is a shabby village close to the border. People from Here who travel abroad are welcome only as a source of cheap labour. Until one day the borders are shut and no one is allowed to leave the country. In her poetic prose, with its apparently simple sentences, Joke van Leeuwen manages to evoke a mythical world that we can connect with contemporary themes such as xenophobia, migration and totalitarian regimes.
222 beautifully worded pages - Brijs pushes his boundaries as a writer.
Het Belang van Limburg
‘The Year of the Dog’ is a scintillating, often harrowing novel about love, lust, betrayal and the (im)possibility of close friendship between a man and a woman. It is Brijs’ very own version of ‘When Harry met Sally’.
This is a truly major debut. ‘Buck’ is pretty terrific.
Stripspeciaalzaak
In the beginning… there is Buck, the first man on earth. This absurd but very clever story of creation, full of acerbic wit, shows us a wonderfully anachronistic paradise filled with dazzling colours, in which Buck wanders like a blank page. The humour, the well-structured narrative and the awe-inspiring natural beauty make ‘Buck’ a very impressive debut indeed.
Venice, that city of water and gondolas, is a living memory of more than five centuries, packed to the rafters with cultural history. Walking a fine line between heritage and cliché, this book is intended as a tribute to the artists who have captured the sounds and colours of Venice in their work.
Naima once again brings about a kind of Copernican revolution in the anti-racism story.
Hand in Hand
The public debate about racism and discrimination usually concentrates on shocking injustices, rather than the day-to-day racism that results in what Naima Charkaoui calls micro-injuries, caused by profound and painful experiences that are hard to put into words. What’s more, the culprits are often central to the debate and to the follow-up, while the victim is left out in the cold. This book is a plea for more attention to be paid to the victims of racism.
While his sister has been in the land of Nod for a while, brother is not yet ready for bed. First he has to tuck in his cuddly toy, chase away bad dreams, count the stars and feel cold. 'Sleep Tight!’ is a cheerful little book about not wanting to go to sleep, the power of fantasy and… of books.
Many psychological differences between the sexes are not solely the product of upbringing and the cultural environment. Instead they are in part a predictable consequence of millions of years of evolution by natural and sexual selection. This well-written book draws upon the most recent scientific developments as support for its plea to us to rethink our concept of feminism.
All of his books are a feast to read and look at together.
De Volkskrant on ‘A House for Harry’
The king has seen a dragon and is afraid to go to bed before his three bravest knights have slain it. But where does the dragon hide in the dark? The three knights are undaunted, convinced they will soon find him. But it is not as easy as they had thought. A great adventure in saturated colour.
Piet de Moor likes to call his books a ‘fricassee’, after a dish popular in Flanders in which all kinds of ingredients are mixed. In this book, centred on the life of J.D. Salinger, he combines fact and fiction to create an intriguing puzzle, a novel as well as a portrait of an era.
Those who have read 'Brutopia' will be seeing this metropolis through different eyes
Cutting Edge
Since Donald Trump dismissed Brussels as a ‘hellhole’, the city has become world famous. Brussels has its fans, but it is also the most hated city in Belgium and the European Union. In this fascinating and very readable urban biography Pascal Verbeken debunks the widespread clichés and prejudices about contemporary Brussels by looking at its history with all its dreams and failures.
Writer Koen Peeters and painter Koen Broucke, both fascinated by Ostend, wander through the streets in search of the town’s soul. ‘A Room in Ostend’ is a moving and sometimes ironic account of their peregrinations. It is a book about friendship, loss, self-reflection, adventures big and small and the magic that encounters can bring.
Van Der Veken's line is so sharp that his world is beautifully streamlined.
The New Yorker on ‘Fabrica Grafica’
‘Airplanes’ is a remarkable reference work for pilots-to-be. It answers all kinds of questions about flying, the components of a plane, the influence of the weather and the atmosphere and about communication in an ever more crowded airspace. The unique illustrations in the so-called atomic style contribute to the book’s industrial look. Van Der Veken produces clever, highly stylised illustrations that are not only technically correct but also atmospheric and poetic.
An elderly acting couple take stock of their love for each other and for their profession. All their productions are flops except one: a popular repertory classic about a pair of swearing and hard-drinking intellectuals that brings in money and audiences.
Olbrechts is quietly working on what may well turn out to be one of the strongest Dutch language graphic oeuvres.
9e Kunst
Hawk struggles to live up to his name. Unlike the strong, uncompromising bird, he is timid, insecure and the target of his colleagues’ ridicule. Following an incident, he is suspended from work and goes to recuperate at his aunt, who lives in a quiet village surrounded by nature. He is determined to change.
Magical prose that is almost unequalled in our literary tradition.
Humo
In order to address several hot topics, Fikry El Azzouzi opts for all-out satire in ‘The Reward’. With acerbic wit and absurd humour he writes the coming-of-age story of a boy in search of both his sexual and national identity.
The unexpected is what excites in this novel. A damn good piece of work.
Literair Nederland
Mattis, a self-declared ‘champion of solitude’, spends his empty days in a dilapidated house beside a lake, far from civilization. He looks upon life with derision and self-contempt. Then Elma strides into his life, naked, wading across the lake. A novel permeated by both humour and melancholy, cynicism and sarcasm. Vintage Verhulst.
Discretion is a conservative word, despite the fact that those who continue to find its purport valuable are anything but conservative in spirit.
Vrij Nederland
‘Discretion’ is a stimulating philosophical essay about a virtue we are in danger of losing but which we need now more than ever. At the same time, it is a criticism of the spirit of our times and a plea for a twilight zone, for refuge from the storm and for mental agility. Discretion is important because it helps us to relate to those things that are important to us.
Carmien Michels has a history on stage. She won the Dutch Poetry Slam Championship, came in third at the Poetry Slam World Championship and became the European Champion later that year. Her debut poetry collection bears witness to the way her poetry grew on stage.
Unsettling poetry that fascinates by its stupefying sensuous power
De Standaard
'No Man's Land Night' is not really a whodunnit, but the main character's quest for an answer to the question ‘Where do I come from?’ triggers an adventurous story full of surprises and inventive associations. Annemarie Estor depicts and critiques a dystopian world that is magical and exotic, but at the same time terrifyingly recognizable.
'Hinterland’ is a claustrophobic novel about solidarity and individuality, which makes us think about the way we treat the earth and our fellow man. If that world becomes a world that can no longer accommodate us all: who gets to stay and who doesn’t, who belongs to ‘our group’?
Love for music, captured in gently flowing sentences.
De Standaard
Does music enrich humanity and society? Over time, philosophers have considered this question with a great deal of scepticism. Alicja Gescinska is convinced that music is more uplifting than it is pernicious.
This passionate admirer is generous and always worth reading.
HUMO
Odes to spring, to Leonard Cohen, to the cleaning lady, to failure, to Kofi Annan and of course to love. Whatever his topic, Van Reybrouck drops his guard completely in his subtle and poignant odes.
An intimate love relationship makes people happy, but why is it so hard to find let alone maintain? In this book Paul Verhaeghe offers a different take on intimacy.
In 'The Climate Is Us' these two young activists reach out a hand to each of us: to politicians and policy makers, to parents and grandparents, to their peers. They call for change, because the clock is ticking.
Pieters invests Rabbit and Hedgehog with both a heart and a soul
NRC Handelsblad
Rabbit and Hedgehog are sworn friends. In these short stories, they ponder life, their friendship, the meaning of ‘later’, and always go back to each other after an argument. In the tradition of Arnold Lobel’s ‘Frog and Toad’ and Toon Tellegen’s animal fables, Paul Verrept and Nils Pieters have created two lovely new characters to cherish.
In ‘The Book of Life’ Floortje Zwigtman and Sassafras De Bruyn take a light-hearted look at everything to do with having a baby. Citing facts and legends from around the world, they show that wherever you go having a child is an event that gives rise to stories. Funny, lively and brimming with both facts and fiction, ‘The Book of Life’ is one of a kind.
A picture book full of crazy dialogue and vivid images providing hours of narrative fun
MappaLibri
This story started off as a theatrical performance, which is reflected in the humorous dialogue and sharp, staccato lines. The bright colours in the illustrations complement the theatrical story exceptionally well. A pleasure to look at, with vivid colours, comical characters and imaginative details.
His language roars, rumbles and crackles. Only a born storyteller can write like this.
NRC Handelsblad
In the figure of the wonderfully defiant Stans, Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem creates an unforgettable character, and subtly brings topical issues such as gender and identity into an extremely convincing historical setting. Ghent, Paris, Vienna and the battlefields near the Danube come to life in his sensuous language, so much so that the reader can smell the blood, taste the beer and feel the cannons in his belly.
Verrept needs just a few words to evoke the drama of far-reaching events.
MappaLibri
Fifteen-year-old Nabila has had enough of the monotonous life in her village. Egged on by the spirit in her head – her djinn – she travels to Beirut as a stowaway in her uncle’s taxi. Verrept sketches the hopelessness of life on the street in a city torn by both war and the widening gap between rich and poor. The greyish images with powerful charcoal lines and sombre colouring accentuate the dark threats to the city.
An exceptionally sensory narrative that revels in language ****
De Volkskrant
‘Salt’ is a comedy, a rollercoaster of absurd incidents that shows mankind at its worst. This dystopia is situated in an unspecified past, but manages to describe our own age in an eerily compelling way.
This book will resonate for a long time and I do hope it will have a healing effect on society.
DeWereldMorgen
This book is more than a reconstruction of a forgotten war year. It offers a new way of understanding World War II, which raises questions that reach far beyond the pitch-black year of 1942. Set against this startling background, the author examines the past, as well as the acceptance and denial of what came to pass.
A philosophical book that challenges the motivations of western aid workers in Africa, and at the same time an account of an idealistic, lonely western man who is incapable of exorcising the ghosts from his past.
'Night Parents' is a swirling mix of intimate night-time conversations, brooding diary excerpts, meaningful flashbacks and scenes filled with slapstick, culminating in a gothic novel complete with sawn-off fingertips and family secrets.
Uncomfortable conclusions alternate with vivid images
Het Parool
The international bakery appears to be a place where freedom and civil rights prevail. The whole world comes together here. Nolens has written a distinctly political and contemporary pamphlet, an attack on our individualistic society. He portrays the poetic and multi-layered quest of an individual who seeks to connect with the fluctuating forms of community in a city.
In ‘Cursed Wood’ Johan de Boose gives voice to an object rather than a human being. A piece of wood, originally from the Cross of Christ, travels through Europe. The reader is taken on a journey past the most dramatic events in European history, all of which the wood has witnessed.
An impeccably structured, typical 'De Graef narrative' that performs a fine balancing act between philosophy, social critique and pure romanticism.
Knack
Rudy is a philosopher, just like you and me. A man with questions and concerns. Endearing, charming and confrontational. ‘The point is that we’re all trapped but we’re not aware of it,’ he says. Like a mix between a stand-up comedian, a psychiatrist and a philosopher Rudy confronts us with the painful truth. He takes stock of a world that is not doing very well.
Bart Van Loo is in top form. The Burgundians is impossible to put down and hits like a sledgehammer. A masterpiece.
De Morgen
‘The Burgundians’ takes the reader on a journey through a thousand years of European history, calling at cities such as Dijon, Paris, Lille, Ghent, Bruges and Delft, up to the time when the Seventeen Provinces arose and the Burgundian Empire came to an end. It tells a scintillating account of pyres and banquets, plagues and jousts, Joan of Arc, Jan van Eyck, Philip the Good and the Golden Fleece.
A feast for the eyes. Mannaert is one of the stars of the contemporary graphic novel
Enola
Yasmina's father is struggling to make ends meet, but luckily Yasmina knows the right people and places so she can serve him a delicious meal every day. But one day an addictive type of potato appears on the market with rather strange consequences for those who eat them. When her father falls victim to this mystery as well Yasmina decides that enough is enough.
