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.
'Mazel tov' is a compelling, thought-provoking story about children growing up in a Modern Orthodox sect, as seen through the eyes of a young woman who is not Jewish. It gives a unique glimpse of the unfamiliar world for both sides.
The young Remi, predestined to follow in his father’s footsteps as a farmer, is pursued by irrepressible dreams and voices. When Remi announces that he has a vocation and is to enter a strict order of monks, no one can understand him.
Masterfully composed by an enlightened illuminator
Terres de legende
A cross between a coming-of-age story and a social satire. This colourful, hilarious and tragic graphic novel is about identity and humanity, about not very intelligent design, about yesterday and tomorrow. With ‘Papa Zoglu’, Simon Spruyt has shown once again that he is one of the most ingenious and funniest comic-book creators in Flanders.
Following the adaptation and sanitisation of fairy stories by the Brothers Grimm, Disney and others, writers are increasingly restoring these tales to their original, complex and sometimes dark and creepy forms. Marita de Sterck is the unbeatable master.
Aerts has the ability to make emotions glow beneath his words
Kinderboekenpraatjes
Some friends are much more than that. They grow up like twin cherries on the same stalk. Adin and Dina have that kind of friendship. ‘Cherry Heaven’ is a sensitive story about going away and coming back, and about the power of friendship: in spite of Adin’s move to the city, the two children do whatever they can to stay connected.
Impactful. Shows shameful current realities that get deep under the skin.
De Morgen
A girl is hiding in the back of a lorry. She’s sharing the space with a horse, her mum, and Captain Compass, her best friend. They’re on their way to another country, where the walls don’t dance and the houses don’t fall, and where the sky doesn’t rumble like thunder when there’s not a cloud to be seen. A light book about a weighty subject.
Peter Theunynck’s body houses twin souls: a virtuoso aesthete and a contrary troublemaker; a mild melancholic and a snappy hero of the resistance; a whistling nature-lover and a protesting city-dweller.
Embedded in a fragmentary atmospheric sketch of life in the port of Antwerp during World War I, ‘Occupied City’ is first and foremost a settling of accounts with the bourgeois culture and politics of Ostaijen’s period. The Dadaist influence from his time in Berlin can be found in its inventive rhythmical typography, its use of the collage technique, and the radicalism of its unparalleled cynical evocation of wartime suffering.
This is great theatre on the square centimeter. The leading role? The classical duo: you and me.
Leonard Nolens
The poems in ‘hulp’ show the influence of the theatre: the two characters presented are utterly at the mercy of their urges, fears and desires. ‘hulp’ is representative of Meuleman’s themes and obsessions; he is a cold observer of what might better be concealed behind closed doors. The author portrays characters who cast off their façades and make their way through a dark universe of loveless dependency, power, perversion and rampant sexual compulsions.
Her wonder on existence becomes the wonder of the reader
Jury Report VSB Poetry Prize
Maud Vanhauwaert already had won her spurs on the stage before notably debuting as a poet with her collection ‘Ik ben mogelijk’ (I am possible). ‘Wij zijn evenwijdig’ is a complex collection that at a closer look gets more and more coherent, using rhetorical strategies that easily seduce the reader. Reader and poet, walking parallel, touch each other in infiniteness.
Karel van de Woestijne is perhaps the most important post-symbolist poet to have written in the Dutch language. Van de Woestijne’s collected work consists of almost one thousand pages of poetry and an equal amount of prose, a significant portion being dedicated to epic poetry and essays on the visual arts and literature.
Charlotte Van den Broeck won her poetical spurs in a similar way to Maud Vanhauwaert, namely onstage. The accompanying familiarity of her name provided her debut ‘Chameleon’ with the necessary impetus. ‘Chameleon’ would appear to be the perfect title for a debut volume of poetry.
This is an extremely accurate and haunting collection of poems.
Jury Report Herman de Coninck Prize
In the poems of Moors’ debut collection ‘There is a tall sky above us’, a rather peculiar ‘I’ communicates ongoing amazement about a rather peculiar world. Undoubtedly the strong compositional aspect and the equally strong, provocative nature of her work are partly why these poems have already been deemed classics of the twenty-first century and Moors one of the rising stars of Flemish poetry.
Leonard Nolens is a monumental figure in Flemish poetry. His poetry forms one of the most all-encompassing and uncompromising oeuvres in Dutch-language literature. With brilliance, Nolens addresses a number of classic themes in ever-varying modulations, as if haunted by them. Nolens’ poetry is distinguished by the polyphonic ways of thinking and imaginary ways of acting that are contained within it.
Her universe is peopled by characters and situations which brutally burst into your imagination and remain there to haunt your dreams when you are wide awake.
Jury Report VSB Poetry Prize
Delphine Lecompte’s poetry creates an extraordinary universe, peopled with characters of highly diverse plumage. The poems are self and family portraits, which, like mirrors at a funfair, magnify the poet’s world into mythological dimensions and associations and reduce it to personal dramas. Full of unusual trains of thought, they seem most like lucid ravings.
Ruth Lasters operates with a pair of silver scissors, filleting modern society affectionately, but uncompromisingly.
Jury Report VISB Prize
She connects a football game to the way our brain works, and flashing neon lights remind her of her own futility. Ruth Laster's poetry is characterized by playful leaps of the mind, yet they are never banal. Lasters employs language as a magnifying glass: she twists reality to see with a crystal-clear vision, against the loss of wonder, and for the gusto of discovery.
A monument, in the oeuvre of Verhelst as well as in the history of poetry
De Standaard
‘Choir’ is the first anthology of poems Peter Verhelst selected himself out of published and unpublished works. This new context forced Verhelst not only to change the chronological order, but often also to a rewriting of several poems.
Van Bastelaere provokes, menaces and seduces, curses and sings, but ceaselessly knows to fascinate his reader, to tangle him in his web of words
Ons Erfdeel
‘Affairs of the Heart’ is generally acknowledged as Van Bastelaere's best and richest work to date. In this collection, the heart appears as an empty signifier which is accorded another meaning in every poem and is shown as a cultural construction.
Hadewijch's Songs are the beating heart of Dutch-language literature. This mystic was the first woman in Europe to have dared to sing of mystical love in pure love poetry. Hadewijch created with astounding mastery and linguistic skill a mysticism of desire.
Insingel’s language has the grim structure of a machinery, but when carefully read that machinery displays emotions
NRC Handelsblad
Language is at the heart of Mark Insingel’s oeuvre. His writing is based on an idiosyncratic, creative relationship with existing forms of expression such as slogans, traditional proverbs and idiomatic phrases, which he undermines and in his unique way playfully and unexpectedly combines in varying settings to eke out new meanings.
Erik Spinoy constructs his collections with great care, dividing them meticulously into sections and cycles that reinforce his treatment of themes. He rediscovers himself time and again, like a snake shedding its skin. His book ‘Now is Already too Late’ is no different in this respect, and at the same time it is.
Van hee holds on to the ordinary, familiar, everyday things: landscapes, conversations, relationships and moments of intense love. The seeming transparency of her language gives a universal dimension to our everyday images of loss. The reader imagines himself safe in her world, an illusion that is often suddenly dashed.
Gradually the light nonchalant tone in Jooris’s poetry disappears and it becomes more severe. The world moves increasingly out of the frame; more and more frequently the poems are about poetry itself. In his poetic work too Jooris has often turned to the world of the arts for inspiration. 'Sculptures' is the perfect introduction to his comparatively modest oeuvre.
In the dead calm literature in Flanders, the most remarkable debutant in years
Humo
With the skill of a pathologist, in 'Waakzaam' (Vigilant, 2011), he dissects the ugliness of hedonism and the aberration of egotism using drawn-out tirades in which the metre jerks and judders, and in which he makes a conscious choice to use ugly, often composite words full of hard consonants, like something posted by a spammer on an Internet forum.
In ‘The Trip to Inframundo’ (2011) Peter Holvoet-Hanssen presents a challenging selection of poems taken from these five collections, and by altering the original chronology and combining poems in new ways he constructs a completely fresh collection in which he follows trails that emerge before fading away
His sentences are balanced and rhythmic, his language shines. *****
Haarlems Dagblad
Seb and Billie are seventeen and are both a little strange. Thanks to their friendship, the quiet Seb blossoms and opens up. But then Billie has an accident on a trampoline and ends up in a coma. Seb stops going to school and shuts himself away inside his room and inside himself. His despairing parents give him an airsoft gun for Christmas.
‘She Alone’ is a story of a love between Western Europe and Islam, and a confrontation between and a merging of Europe and Islamic values, as well as a dystopic warning for Europe, and its growing fear of everything that is different.
Yuji Kohara is a molecular biologist who is researching the roundworm, C. elegans. One evening he accidentally gets off the metro a stop early. His absentmindedness sets him on the trail of an old flame. What follows is a long night, a restless week and a strange rest of the year.
This is not simply a comic book for adults – it is literature.
De Standaard
For thirty years, Adan Diss has been waiting for San Borondón, a mythical island that appears on the horizon every once in a while. He used to have his whole life ahead of him. He could have been a butcher or a doctor, but he chose to become nothing. He believes patience is all he needs to find happiness. Waiting for an Island is about you and me, about our rays of hope and our daydreams, which in the worst case can become real demons.
In her historical novel, which is based on actual events, Janzing shines the spotlight on the childhoods of two of the greatest icons of the 20th century: Audrey Hepburn and Anne Frank. Two world-famous girls born in the same year, connected by one devastating war.
A razor-sharp book about the cowardice we call neutrality *****
De Standaard
Wilfried Wils is an auxiliary policeman in Antwerp at the start of the Second World War. The city is in the grip of violence and distrust. Wilfried does what he can for himself, avoiding paths that are too slippery.
A crucial book that will stir hearts and minds ****
De Standaard
Stefan Hertmans based the story of ‘The Convert’ on historical facts, and he brings the Middle Ages to life with immense imagination and stylistic ingenuity. This is the story of three religions and a world going through massive change, a story of hope, love and hatred, a novel about a woman who can be certain of one thing: at home the death penalty awaits.
‘Yucca’ is not a classic thriller with a dénouement. The pieces of the puzzle never all fall in the right place, but seek an answer to the question how to deal with threatening violence and loss.
A debut that you wish every writer would write: surprising, imaginative and merciless *****
De Standaard
Eva, in her late twenties, travels back to her native village with a big block of ice in her car. She has been invited to a viewing of a new milking parlour at a dairy farm where her childhood friend Pim still lives, an occasion that will also serve to commemorate the death of his older brother, who drowned as a young man. Slowly it becomes clear she returned to her village to take revenge for what happened to her as a child...
Van Gerrewey proves once again that the intangible nature of love is still the ever-reliable fuel of literature
De Morgen
A man wakes up in a house belonging to friends who have gone on holiday. Accompanied by their cat, he recalls the previous summer, when a woman was still with him. He decides to write to her to bring her up to date with recent developments.
Is this a letter of complaint from a jilted lover, an exhibitionist confession to the world, or a scrupulous self-examination?
On their way home from a holiday on the Costa Brava, Suzanne, Catherine and Hanna watch as their mother is mowed down by lorry on the shoulder of a French motorway. From now on, father Ivo will do his best to raise their three daughters, but without great success.
Gronda writes clear prose, melancholy, but seasoned with a slight irony that alleviates the weight
Haarlems Dagblad
Three days before a major exhibition of his paintings in Venice Igor Nast receives a call from his half-brother, summoning him to Switzerland to his father's deathbed. A father of whom he cherishes not a single memory.
Skorobogatov carries you off and bewitches you with his lovely language ****
NRC Handelsblad
‘Portrait of an Unknown Girl’ is not only a powerful story of the beauty and tragedy of first love, but also an uncompromising portrait of an inhumane epoch and an oppressive regime that breaks people, punishes innocence and integrity and ruins lives.
At the end of his life and in the first two decades of the 20th century, Gezelle was hailed by the avant-garde as the founder of modern Flemish poetry, and his unique voice was also belatedly recognised in the Netherlands and often compared with his English contemporary Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Gilliams’ sixty-eight poems and his entire body of work are part of the painful and obsessive effort to uncover and preserve his true self. The ultimate goal of his endeavors was to create a “lyrical autobiography”, a still portrait in the sea of life.
Daem's stories exude daring and the urge to experiment. ****
Cutting Edge
This book is Daem’s disconcerting, funny and idiosyncratic debut. Despite the often dark subjects – he does not fight shy of death – Daem invariably allows a gleam of hope to show through in his stories. He carries the reader along with his excellent sense of control and structure, working out the dramatic storyline to the last detail.
One can speak of Elsschot’s oeuvre as great European literature
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Set in a down-market Paris boarding house before World War I, this novel is a masterpiece of ironic black humour. The Villa’s owner, the energetic Madame Brulot, is childless and lavishes more affection on her pet monkey, Chico, than on her husband, an embittered ex-solicitor.
After World War I Edgard Demont returns physically and emotionally wounded to his native country.In search of a safe place among the confusion and destruction he finds that lovers are more effective than medication in helping him live with injuries that go deeper than the scars on his flesh.
This novel, peppered with countless striking metaphors and colloquialisms, describes the vivid history of a family in a Flemish village. The essence of the novel is a cautious fumbling for truth. A young boy attempts to fathom his grandmother’s proud, dour demeanour and to get closer to his teacher. But above all he wants to understand what happened to Marcel.
Packed with a Verhulstian wealth of poetry and politics
Humo
Liliya Dimova is the art-loving merry widow of an aggrieved Bulgarian writer. Her final wish in life is to correct the literary history of communism and wipe out every word written by Soviet regime puppet Mikhail Sholokhov by using the pages of his book as toilet paper.
For love of her late husband, and for all the other forgotten people who paid such a high price for their freedom of expression.
Beautifully articulated and full of unexpected twists and turns
De Telegraaf
‘Greener Grass’ is a collection of stories in which a succession of people step into the limelight, all of whose lives contain substantial hidden realms. With their emotional isolation and longing for affection, the characters arouse sympathy and compassion, even if their self-control ends in a violent outburst.
An original and refreshing study that does not shrink from taking the shine off some well-worn symbolism.
IFILOSOFIE
In this well-documented narrative account, with reference to personal experiences, religious traditions, Western literature and philosophy, cultural, technological and scientific developments, Jan Verplaetse looks for answers to the question of why blood fascinates us, yet instils revulsion in us at the same time.
Lamrabet peels off skin after skin of the onion and does so in a magnificently compelling style ****
De Volkskrant
Moncif tells his story hiding under a table in the mortuary waiting for the guard to leave the building. His wife left him because he had distanced himself from Muslim culture and now that his brother has died in a car accident he has descended into deep despair.
Verhelst creates visual prose and will not readily be surpassed in that respect
De Standaard
The Belgian Doctor Duval moved to a magnificent tropical island years ago. Together with the priest and the Madame from the coffee house, he involves himself in the destiny of Cassandra, the girl who stands constantly at the waterline. Life on the island is abruptly disturbed when several whales and a number of women and girls who are unable to speak are washed ashore.
Act like Elvis and shoot a bullet through your telly: it is here you have to look
Humo
Charles Ducal’s poetry contains much irony and casual humour, yet doesn’t shrink from such grand themes as language, religion and sexuality. His poetry is allegedly blasphemous, but ‘shocking’ would be a better epithet.
