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.
Rich and vivid language and packed with gorgeous illustrations
Hebban
As Leonardo da Vinci wrote centuries ago, ‘We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.’ With ‘Wonderground’, Sarah Garré and Heleen Deroo want to change that. In five themed parts, the two scientists guide us through the thrilling underground world. A very special book for future subterranean heroes.
A small masterpiece that moves and consoles and at the same time makes us think.
In de boekenkast
In a fit of rage, Jackson accidentally injures his teacher’s leg. It’s his fault that Ms Annie is out of the running for months. Jackson feels terribly sorry, but he just can’t get the word ‘sorry’ past his lips. Can the strange old man who calls himself King Lear help him? Lievens succeeds in finding the perfect balance between raw reality and absurd fantasy. ‘Visiting King Lear’is a moving, tender and in places very funny novel.
A great picture book with gentle humour; an ideal bedtime story!
Boekenzoeker
Loe is a stubborn toddler who has two grown-ups. She observes the adult world with amazement, and sometimes a dash of pity. Loe doesn’t understand why big people step outside the white stripes on the zebra crossing (surely everyone knows that’s where the crocodiles lurk). They also forget to look under the bed every evening to check that no monsters are hiding there. Her child’s logic is both funny and familiar.
Bear is a self-confident expert at spotting animals. But he rarely follows his own well-meant tips – stay alert, adopt a good posture, look underwater and in the sky – and invariably peers in the wrong direction. This sparks great hilarity among young readers. Read-aloud pleasure guaranteed!
Anemone is not like other princesses. She loves everything that’s dirty or sticky, or a bit smelly. Anemone refuses to wash and gives up combing her hair. Everything sticks to her face or her hands, to her mother's great despair. ‘The Princess of Sticky Fingers’ is a modern fairy tale full of humour and with a contemporary twist.
A fun, fresh addition to the array of books that break through gender stereotypes
Cargo Confetti
Boris is getting ready for Doll and Action Man’s wedding party. He folds napkins into flowers, blows up white balloons and makes the finger food. But when he tries to get Doll to wear a princess dress, things don’t go as planned. ‘Bridesmaid Boris’ is a colourful picture book that treats diversity not as a subject but as the most natural thing in the world. The flamboyant pencil and aquarelle drawings in bright colours make the merriment leap from the pages.
An impressive account of hope, love and devastation. *****
NRC
Gardener Alois is called to arms in the summer of 1914. As time goes on, he becomes more and more conflicted, about what good is, who God is, and who he is himself. In this voluminous tale in soft greys and browns, Joris Vermassen stresses the importance of beauty and love in all their forms, against the background of the hell of the First World War. ‘Soldier-Gardener’ is a nuanced portrait of a man and a world in crisis.
Masterly. A shadow play that seems horribly topical
De Standaard
A young family goes on holiday to Italy and feels distinctly unwelcome there. The prospect of a conjuring show promises a welcome light-hearted distraction. But the magician turns out to be a hypnotist who takes a wicked pleasure in getting people to dance to his tune, with tragic consequences. Tinel makes tangible the discomfort and disquiet that are deeply embedded in Mann’s story.
Little elf Selfie and the five Gompies hear an unfamiliar sound in the forest: something keeps saying ‘oink’. The little blue animal with one ear and lilac eyes looks sad and lost. But they can’t make head or tail of its oinking language. This cheerful adventure story is full of magic and of comical chaos in which the reader becomes thoroughly immersed. A colourful fairy-tale book, it’s also an ode to stories, to nature and to the arts as an antidote to heartlessness.
A poetic and exceptionally beautiful story about knowledge, wonder and the unknown
Blunder
A famous ornithologist is firmly attached to the certainties of life, until he sees a bird he doesn’t yet know, and everything is suddenly up in the air. The solid ground under his feet falls away – or is this his chance to look at life with fresh eyes? ‘The Nameless Bird’ is a moving story about an adult who rediscovers his childlike sense of wonder.
His language roars, rumbles and crackles. Only a born storyteller can write like this.
NRC
Properzia de’Rossi is stubborn and knows what she wants: to become an artist. But in Bologna in the early sixteenth century, a young woman doesn’t have much say over her own life, let alone have the chance to become a sculptress. So Properzia decides to take her fate into her own hands. Cinematically written, full of adventure, with a great sense of humour and a female rebel in the leading role, ‘Properzia’ is what we have come to think of as a true Van Rijckeghem.
An ode to misfits, to eternally young spirits in an adult world. ****
Humo
Author Maarten Inghels feels the lack of a certain amount of danger in his life. Along with an elephant, he follows in the footsteps of Hannibal, the man who in 218 BCE crossed the Alps with thirty-seven elephants to take the Romans by surprise. As their journey goes on, a close bond develops between Gideon and Inghels, and the author allows himself to be led by the elephant instead of the other way around. The novel is presented as a factual travel account, but plays with the unbounded possibilities of fiction through surrealism.
In ‘It Sparkles’, Lara Taveirne and Marieke De Maré have collected a series of poetic and moving short stories set in Bruges, the town about which they wrote together between 2023 and 2025. The stories, written alternately by each of them, arose from their meetings with various residents of Bruges. Each story depicts a snapshot of human connection. The stories are small in scale but extensive in their emotional reach. Both authors write with a keen eye for detail and a big heart for people who generally tend to be invisible.
A clever, caustic book that, like every good comedy, leaves a bitter aftertaste.
NDR Germany
From one day to the next, Berlin is swarming with elephants. As a thank you’ for tighter legislation governing the import of hunting trophies, the president of Botswana has given the Germans 20,000 elephants as a present. Germany’s federal chancellor Winkler is challenged to deal with the crisis, while elections are due and the extreme right is hot on his heels in the polls. Gaea Schoeters has written a light and humurous political satire that interrogates the way the West treats Africa and is a plea for ecological seriousness.
A novel that depicts today’s world in all its disorientation and ambiguity. *****
Knack
Mira looks back at her time in the company of Ludwig von Sachsenheim, a famous director and artist. Years ago she decided to join Ludwig’s social-artistic experiment in Berlin, the Neue Gesellschaft, a kind of artistic variant of Big Brother. The experiment runs aground, however, when Ludwig is taken to court for sexual intimidation, subsidy fraud and other charges. Several years later, when a journalist approaches Mira, she looks back on the ambiguous part she played in the dynamics of the Neue Gesellschaft.
In simple words and sentences, Janneke Schotveld brings the world of best friends Hanna and Hamza to life beautifully, in a book that is witty and cheerful without ever being shallow. In every spread, Arevik d’Or’s colourful drawings exude exactly that same atmosphere, with their relaxed lines and their accessibility. ‘Hanna and Hamza’ is airy and light, but manages to touch the reader all the same. A beautiful gem for early readers.
One of the most impressive of new European writers, for both page and screen.
John Boyne, Irish Times
In ‘Beginnings’ the protagonist returns to the seaside resort on the Belgian coast where he grew up. On the sea dyke he looks at the building in which his family ran a hotel for generations, a place imbued with memories, stories and scars. The novella is a free, associative narrative in the poetic and evocative style that Angelo Tijssens has made his own, it's constructed out of short, sensual scenes that dig deeper and deeper into a personal and collective sense of nostalgia.
After the last page you immediately want to read it again. ****
De Standaard
As children Felix and Louise, brother and sister, are inseparable. Everything changes when, on holiday, they are approached by the father of their playmates. After that, nothing is ever the same. Felix’s mental health gradually declines and Louise enjoys feeding her brother's fears and driving him further into psychological isolation. Lenny Peeters plays a brilliant game with chronology and perspective. In a story that topples at an accelerating pace, the reader is challenged to discover the truth.
Kimia is a brave and self-assured girl, growing up in the heart of Africa. In Europe, meanwhile, the continent of Africa is being divided up as if it’s a no man’s land. The story of Kimia is interspersed with spreads about the historical context, from before 1884 to the independence of Congo in 1960 and beyond. This sorely needed book shows at a child’s level how terrible Congo's colonization was and the impact it had, and is still having, on the people of Congo.
Supremely painstaking and precise. An idiosyncratic interplay between content and form. *****
NRC
Shortly after the birth of her child, motherhood draws a young woman into an existential crisis. Love for the baby doesn’t come; the alienation, despair and exhaustion are total. In a fragmented form and with penetrating insights, ‘The Animals Within’ describes her struggles. The book is a clever experimental exploration of the destabilizing experience of postpartum depression, told through a woman for whom the normal world becomes incomprehensible.
Nuyts has written a novel that is bizarre, tense and surprising. ‘Groundwork’ is a penetrating, socially critical and deeply literary work. ****
De Standaard
From her colony in the Horn of Africa a naked mole rat was sent to Vaderlandsplein, a square in Brussels. She waits in her hiding place for a briefing from her colony, which fails to arrive. While awaiting the briefing, she keeps herself busy by digging, undermining her new city. Sink holes appear everywhere, literally fragmenting the infrastructure of the political heart of Belgium and Europe. A meeting and growing friendship with a climate activist, however, produces an unexpected twist.
Skorobogatov opens his heart and shows the pain that became the essence of his life.
De Tijd
Aleksandr Skorobogatov tells the story of his son. When the boy is fifteen, the author receives an email from him after they’ve not been in touch for years. The restored contact is only brief, since after barely ten days of emailing back and forth, the boy is brutally attacked and dies a violent death. More than twenty years pass before Aleksandr Skorobogatov tells the poignant story of his loss, and looks back at their relationship and the reason they didn’t see each other for so long.
In beautifully detailed black-and-white drawings alternated with series of colourful, breathtaking spreads in acrylic, Leo Timmers depicts the close friendship between Mimi and her horse. For ‘Mimi & Me’, he learned how to use a dip pen to make fine line drawings full of shading, a supremely successful choice that places a lot of emphasis on the horse’s muscular body and its body language. This intimate, moving book marks a new step in Timmers' oeuvre.
Emily is fourteen and convinced that she’s going to make it in Hollywood. She also resolves to become popular at last. How hard can it be? Meanwhile she finds herself wrestling with her sense of loyalty to her divorced parents. Then, to top it all, she falls in love with a girl. Full of sarcasm and irony, and with an outlandish gift for exaggeration, this clumsy drama queen is a character to embrace with all your heart.
Modern diplomacy, that centuries-old dialogue between nations, must urgently reinvent itself. What might that look like? In ‘The World and the Earth’, David Van Reybrouck offers a passionate and boundary-pushing proposal to radically broaden our thinking – and our politics.
A unique walking book in lively, meandering fragments.
De Morgen
In ‘Look! Over There, Look!’ 81-year-old Eric de Kuyper explores the urbanisation of Brussels’ municipalities and neighbourhoods in his signature, slightly old-fashioned style. He reflects on the architecture of streets and houses, façades and interiors encountered during his walks. The book offers a personal perspective on the city’s ‘architectural misery’, while also celebrating successful interventions in the Belgian capital.
a significant contribution to the issue of war and peace in this book
Philosophy Journal
Much is said about war, but too little is truly thought through. Judged by the damage it causes, the scale of suffering it inflicts, and the moral guilt it entails, war is the greatest evil on Earth. From this follows that no humane goal can ever justify war. This is the starting point of Gerard Bodifée’s new book ‘War’ – a burning issue in light of today’s threats of conflict.
One word comes to mind to sum up so much beauty: a masterpiece. We are dealing with a pupil of W.G. Sebald.
Le Soir
After the death of his mother in 2022, Joseph Pearce, author of several highly acclaimed novels in Flanders, decides to take stock of his life. The writer, who grew up in a loving family and amidst the bustle of a family-run wholesale business in colonial goods, struggles with his sexual orientation and, as the son of a Jewish German, feels a deep connection to the history of the Jewish people. In the Flanders of the 1950s and 1960s, this is no easy task.
Frivolity and seriousness ideally go hand in hand, argues Peter Venmans. This book is yet another fine example of his thoughtful approach.
Doorbraak.be
Since winning the Socrates Cup in 2023 for his book Hospitality, author Peter Venmans has become known for his accessible and engaging essays on a wide range of philosophical themes. His books often revolve around the linguistic and philosophical analysis of a concept that fundamentally characterises our time – usually because the concept has ‘disappeared’. Because we no longer reflect on it. Because we conveniently reduce its meaning to a one-dimensional interpretation. Or because we take the virtue it represents too much for granted.
‘Peremen!’, the song that reveals a vital piece of European history
De Standaard
When the streets of Minsk filled with demonstrators in the summer of 2020, cameras captured a group of cheerfully dressed musicians performing a rousing version of ‘Peremen!’ (‘Changes!’), the Soviet cult hit by the band Kino. The crowd sang along at full volume, and the song became the anthem of the protests against Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko. Peter Vermeersch was so moved by the footage that he decided to chart the erratic life of this pop song. The result is ‘Pulse’, the story of a song that, in passing, reveals a crucial chapter of recent European history.
His calmly crafted sentences, when read closely or reread, reveal something truly spectacular.
NRC
In Stefan Brijs' latest book, ‘The Patience of Flowers’, he once again takes the reader to Andalusia. As the climate becomes increasingly erratic, he observes the beauty and vulnerability of nature with a pen that is as sharp as it is poetic – both deeply empathetic and strikingly precise.
The Meuse, the river of nearly 1,000 kilometres that flows through France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, is a source of life, home to distinctive fauna and flora. Beyond that, it also shapes the landscape, serves as an archaeological site, a place of worship, a historical crossroads, a political boundary, an economic lifeline, a strategic military axis, and a muse for artists. For millennia, peoples have settled along its banks, learning to cope with the Meuse’s capricious floods.
‘A Different Life’ is an autobiography about a liberation.
Jury BruutTAAL Rainbow Book 2024
Taking a 1996 city trip to Paris with his seventy-year-old mother as his leitmotif, Moeyaert sketches an intimate portrait of his mother, but also discovers how surprisingly often Paris has played a role in his life and realises how little he told his parents about himself. Drawing on letters, photographs and diary excerpts, he gives a frank discussion of his late coming of age – the period of searching after his early debut as an author. He tries to find answers, including ones for the questions he didn’t ask his mother in Paris.
After the death of her mother, Evelien Rutten embarks on a pilgrimage to Auschwitz-Birkenau during the winter of 2004. For the first time, she visits the place where her Polish grandmother once stood face to face with Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. A choice made in 1943 determined the survival of an entire family line. In the biting cold, the author solemnly promises her late mother and grandmother that she will return one day, once she has a daughter of her own. By 2023, her teenage daughter is old enough, and it’s time for a road trip: her daughter is about to receive the history lesson of a lifetime.
‘Wisdom’ is an ode to the softer sciences in a time when all help is welcome.
Trouw
We tend to elevate scientific knowledge as the sole legitimate and valuable form of understanding, a perspective shaped by the capitalist ideology that has dominated society since the end of Second World War. This kind of knowledge mirrors capitalism’s emphasis on speed, utility and measurable results. In this book, Verhaeghe argues that this is a choice – a deliberate way of thinking. There are other ways to approach the power knowledge brings. To do what is right, we must combine knowledge with wisdom. Wisdom, he suggests, is often found in art, which seeks to answer the existential questions every human being asks themselves.
On the banks of La Meuse, a centuries-old farm called Damiaan lies like an island in the river’s winter bed. During floods, the farm literally looks like an isolated fortress, protected by a two-metre-high ring dyke that Bert built single-handedly after the Christmas floods of 1993. The farm also becomes an island in a hostile environment for Bert after some shocking events.
The Flemish poet and critic Paul Demets is known for his rich imagery and sharp reflections on contemporary society. Following ‘The Clover Knot’ (2018), for which he was awarded the Jan Campert prize in 2019, and ‘The Hare Distress Call’ (2020), Demets explores familiar subjects in ‘The Dance of the Bees’ without being repetitive.
She constantly questions our common norms, in short: a successful debut.
Awater
‘Hunger, Heteronormativity & The Galaxy’ (2023) is Lies Gallez’s poetry debut, published two years after her successful short story collection ‘Catching the water’(2021). Gallez presents a personal yet critical reflection on conventional values in three sections, corresponding to the three words in the collection’s title. In each section, our glimpse into the speaker’s world expands, starting with individuality in ‘Hunger’, moving to relationships in ‘Heteronormativity’, and ending with the speaker’s place in society in ‘The Galaxy’.
an original explanation for the crisis of liberalism
Süddeutsche Zeitung
Anyone who has ever participated in heated discussions can confirm that politics has returned to everyday life and that debates about COVID-19, ‘wokeness’, and identity have long since spilled beyond the confines of X (Twitter). After an era of post-politics in which technocratic governance prevailed and citizens could at most comment from the sidelines, almost everything is now under political high tension.
But effective help does not get off the ground without experiental knowledge
de Volkskrant
This book bridges the gap between academic analysis of poverty and the lived experience of those who have to face it. Avoiding sensationalism and self-pity, the author uses parts of his own story sparingly, only as a tool to illustrate his analysis. Aimed at the privileged, this is a crash course in understanding poverty’s depths – a vital step towards meaningful change. Because fighting poverty begins with seeing it differently.
This play delves into the forgotten connections between the first atomic bomb and the colonial history of Belgium
etcetera
Stijn Devillé brings together four contrasting decors and eras surrounding the bombing of Hirsohima: New York 1933, London 1944, Hiroshima 1945 and Congo 2025. This play lays bare the political and social responsibility for the trade in raw materials. Devillé sheds light on the political backroom music, the moral arguments and the human suffering that nuclear weapons have left to us. This play is highly topical.
In the extraordinarily beautiful play ‘Desire’, four people long to be seen. *****
NRC
Four queer men share their (unfulfilled) longings, thoughts, doubts and fears with each other and with the audience. It is tightly composed and divided into three parts, the central part also deals with the antithesis of desire: fear and sorrow. The language and phrasing of ‘Desire’ are simple but powerful, while the composition and repetition form a polyphony and evoke images that feel both intimate and universal.
A clever piece of young-adult theatre about the dangers of a social-engineering ideal taken too far
pzazz
In ‘Bounce’, Christine, Hekuran and Susanne warmly welcome the audience to the pre-launch of Worth It 2.0 – The Next Step, their biggest and most experimental project of all time. It's a satirical thought experiment for teenagers and adults about the route to success. The play carries techno-optimism and self-improvement to their most extreme and horrifying consequences.
A poetic, quirky play, inspired by the Orpheus myth
Theaterkrant
Lucie and her partner Andreas drive to the south of France together. On the way, Lucie looks back at the family holidays of their childhood. For a long time you think Lucie and Andreas are together in the car, until it suddenly transpires that Andreas is not in the passenger seat. ‘Faren’ is a tale of sorrow and mourning, and of how, despite the presence of such intense emotions, you must dare to look ahead.
The book is wonderful, which I know is strange to say about grief, but feeling and writing are two different things and the text is swift and lean and moving.
Siri Hustvedt
In 2017 artist couple Fleur Pierets and Julian Boom started out on a plan to marry each other in all twenty-two countries where it was legal, at the time, for two women to wed. During the wedding in Paris, Julian became unwell on the steps to the town hall. She turned out to have several tumours in her body and only a few weeks to live. In this extremely frank debut, Pierets shares her most intimate memories of Julian and writes about the grief, pain and hopelessness she felt after losing the woman she loved.
Immensely exciting and heartrending. De Sterck writes in pithy, dazzlingly rich language.
Boekwijzer
Amber goes to live on her own in an old labourer’s cottage that fifty years earlier was the scene of the tragic disappearance of a seven-year-old girl. Sonja was never found. Amber becomes haunted by the case and old wounds are opened up. In a mixture of vivid Flemish colloquial speech and poetic sentences, De Sterck rolls out a well-balanced plot with an exceptionally tragic ending that tears at the heartstrings.
The coolest, funniest and craziest children’s book of 2024
Wonderland by Alice
During a bank robbery, Wille’s father tries to stop the criminal Miss Halitosis, but with her poisonous breath she melts him without a second thought. Wille is left orphaned, with only his books to comfort him. Fortunately he meets two new friends, and they work out a plan to thwart the seemingly unstoppable Miss Halitosis. In sparkling prose and with a great sense of absurdist humour, Van Gas tumbles Wille out of each adventure into the next.
The neighbourhood wants a party. Not just any old party – no, a party with children’s slides and fireworks, swimming and skating. But what to do about Hans? In this upbeat picture book, Bouke Billiet has the diverse cast of neighbours speak with one voice, creating a wonderful atmosphere of togetherness. Marjolein Pottie presents spreads packed with fun details and full of exuberant colours, set in a contemporary urban environment.
This book more than lives up to its ambitious title.
Mappalibri
Tom Schamp takes readers on a surprising journey through the alphabet, in colourful pages that guarantee hours of viewing pleasure, both to children and adults. Every letter is given a double-page spread, filled with small pictures, bits of text and word games. In contrast to most ABC books, the words pictured don’t necessarily start with the letter in question. Schamp is unbeatable at capturing the visual beauty of letters.
