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.
A mature, cleverly constructed book, with a rich array of themes and sensory impressions.
De Morgen
After an incident of homophobic violence, a painter and his husband move into a house in a quiet residential district. The painter’s loneliness grows to become isolation. Doubts and his efforts to process the act of violence make his creativity run dry. In ‘The End of the Street’ Angelo Tijssens shows two men trying to find their way amid social expectations and heteronormative role models. In an unadorned and subtle style he lays bare the main character’s search, both in his personal life and in his work as a painter.
An ode to the aesthetic, sensory and natural life, which supposedly has no place in today’s world. ****
De Standaard
Anton teaches art. One evening one of his students calls by and offers him his unconditional friendship. Dius and Anton find each other in their yearning for beauty, classical painting and the wide-open polder landscape. What starts as mutual curiosity gradually becomes a firm friendship, with a shared fascination for the sublime. Against a rich background of artistic associations and references, a special bond grows between two artists’ souls.
A brilliant slice of life with a warm, beating heart; as vivid as literature can possibly be.
NRC Handelsblad
During a visit to the barber’s, news of the death of Peter Green, founder of Fleetwood Mac, casts seventy-year-old Werner back to the days of his youth. With a masterful structure and an endless variety of styles, reminiscent of authors like Haruki Murakami, Jennifer Egan and Ian McEwan, ‘The Two Prong Crown’ elevates a normal life to become literature of the highest order.
This is an exquisitely brilliant novel. Politically exciting and wild and beautiful
Holly Pester
Young refugee Hannah arrives in London with only her late mother's diaries. As she navigates the complexities of Britain's immigration system, she reflects on her family's war-torn past and uncovers a different side of her mother. Far away from her native country, Hannah finds solace in British literature and explores her identity and desires with a fellow asylum seeker. ‘The Seers’ is a compelling and experimental novel about love, loss, resilience, colonial traumas, and the true face of Britain’s immigration policy and its impact on young refugees. A confronting and chastening reading experience.
After centuries of division, six European countries joined hands. Borders blurred and barriers vanished. The continent united by establishing institutions and signing treaties. But above all the story of Europe was written by people. Prime ministers, presidents, chancellors and commissioners determined the direction taken, each in their own time and in their own way.
Politics and economics cannot exist without each other. The global financial crisis makes many people long for a government that will set things straight. Convinced Europeans seize upon the situation to appeal for yet more European integration. For radical nationalists the market is no more than an instrument for striving after their political and cultural vision. ‘The Prosperity and Pride of Nations’ describes the global, European and Belgian history of the complex relationship between politics and economics.
WT. Tijdschrift over de geschiedenis van de Vlaamse Beweging
The shaping of national identity in states and peoples is a continuous process that evolves in relation to the geopolitical situation. Intellectuals, especially historians, have an important part to play in both creating and substantiating that national self-image, since history is a productive tool in the process. Countries have borders, but some countries are borders in themselves. Historian Olivier Boehme describes how the history of Europe has been shaped to an important extent by what he calls ‘border nations’.
Following his bestseller ‘The Burgundians’, of which over 375,000 copies were sold across Europe, Bart Van Loo has written another fascinating journey about our distant past. In the final part of his diptych, ‘In the Footsteps of the Burgundians’, the author brings the Late Middle Ages back to life in inimitable fashion.
Reading about Ceustermans’ quest is enough to make you less nostalgic.
Doorbraak.be
During the Covid-19 crisis, Chris Ceustermans was beset by an existential emptiness that prompted musings about his student days in Leuven in the late 1980s, when he often spent time in the company of a Hungarian called Yuri. A dissident journalist for Radio Free Europe, Yuri had fled Hungary and was staying in the Collegium Hungaricum, where in unexplained circumstances he resorted to suicide. Yuri was of the same generation as Viktor Orbán, in those days an important voice in the liberal resistance to communism. Thirty years later, Ceustermans decided to travel to Budapest in search of answers to his questions.
This book is the total opposite of the famous ‘Voyage autour de ma chambre’ by Xavier de Maistre, although initially Lotte Lola Vermeer explores the world without leaving her room. Google Street View enables her to travel cheaply and tirelessly at her desk, since modern technology allows us to go absolutely everywhere, from dazzling Alaska to icy Siberia. That at least is the idea on which the author was relying. On one of her many digital journeys, however, she discovered that Street View ends abruptly at apparently random places.
Ish Ait Hamou has written his most personal book yet.
VRT
In this unguarded, open, relatable but also confrontational essay, Ish Ait Hamou seeks explanations and answers to life-defining questions from the starting point of personal experience. He focuses first on his own Moroccan community, but the theory of ‘the 1 or 2’ that he develops is at once unique and universal, making his essay potentially important to any reader.
‘Know Yourself’ is a work to cherish and to reread.
Humanistisch Verbond
The starting point for each of the pieces in this book is a philosophical question. They are not chosen at random but arise out of a desire for self-knowledge. With each question the author found that, after brief reflection, her first spontaneous answer proved inadequate. What she initially thought she knew turned out to be no longer valid.
The questions Claeys raises are relevant, and she cleverly links the thinking of Martha Nussbaum and John Rawls to societal issues such as gender freedom, MeToo situations, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
NRC Handelsblad
Pride may seem like something for people with big egos, for individuals who are easily offended, and for braggarts who have no boundaries on social media. Those who are proud tend to put themselves too much in the spotlight.
But pride also underlies emancipation and can be a powerful weapon in protest. With pride, you can better appreciate your own worth. More space for certain forms of pride may be the key to social justice.
‘Under the Bridge’ has the presence of a thriller, but also lifelike characters and astute sentences.****
NRC
After a Friday night celebration under the bridge, Jowi ends up in a coma after a fall from that very bridge. Did he jump? Was it an accident? Or did someone push him? In an ingeniously structured story, the reader gradually finds out exactly what happened. ‘Under the Bridge’ is an intense reading experience and a demonstration of De Vlieger’s extraordinary voice.
Carlo Collodi’s wooden puppet continues to inspire authors and illustrators all over the world. With ‘Oh Pinocchio’, Carll Cneut and Imme Dros add a remarkable retelling to that tradition. In the book Dros works magic with her pen and Cneut with his paintbrush.In ‘Oh Pinocchio’, Cneut and Dros bring the 140-year-old wooden puppet back to life in a way that is truly impressive.
A clever and sultry story in sensual language that shimmers between the lines
Het Parool
Fourteen-year-old Jakob is head-over-heels in love with Julia, his older brother Esse's girlfriend. Jakob finds out that Esse is risking a great deal in his efforts to make his dream a reality. To impress Julia, Jakob tries to save his brother, but things don’t turn out the way he hoped. Herman van de Wijdeven shows himself at his best, with extraordinarily well-drawn personalities, tension that winds to a fever pitch, sensual language and a lot that can be read between the lines.
A tour de force. Engagingly and faultlessly executed
De Morgen
In ‘A Book Full of Houses’, Pieter Van Eenoge is able to give free rein to his love of architecture. In his clear painting style, which gives the impression of being almost geometric, he brings famous houses and architectural forms to life. This is a colourful and intriguing work that treats both iconic architectural achievements and bizarre curiosities with equal amounts of love.
After the death of her father, twelve-year-old Lena is utterly at a loss. She becomes convinced a sea monster is to blame, but nobody believes her. Along with her new friend Vincent, she sets off in search of proof. ‘Sea Sparkle’ is both a thrilling adventure story and a spot-on portrait of a young girl who is struggling to deal with overwhelming grief. A strong and multi-layered debut.
De Vlieger approaches her subject with sincere admiration, and it shows.
NRC
The chicken is more intelligent, more important and more beautiful than we tend to think. It’s high time to become more familiar with this exceptional creature that’s found everywhere but about which we know little. 'The Big Chicken Book' is bursting with love for the bird, convincing even the most ardent chicken-haters.
As a child, Tomiko dreams of other lives and the other people around her. She wants to be far away from the red door that follows her everywhere. When she gets bigger, she decides to flee, further and further from the person she was as a little girl. But even though Tomiko travels to the other side of the world, she can’t leave her past behind. In this debut, Kevin Sezgin creates an intriguing world reminiscent of the work of Shaun Tan.
On a cold winter’s day, Mika and Pip, a couple without children, make a snow child. The child of ice comes to life, laughs and runs, and is given the name Winter. When Winter secretly goes outside to play hide-and-seek in the spring sun, no one can find him... 'Where is Winter?' is a comforting story that makes us feel what the arrival of a child means, how painful parting can be, and how hope brings life.
Playful, inventive and magnificently illustrated story
De Morgen
Chicken Vera is the only one of the flock to survive a fox’s raid, because she’s sitting on eggs. Next to the barn she finds a frightened fox cub that has lost its hunting mother. She knows she really ought to chase the cub away, but her motherly heart is too big. She hides him under her wings and names him Spark. In the tradition of old fables and fairy tales, ‘Robber's Cub’ is a timeless story about tolerance and about caring for others, even for an enemy’s child.
Anaïs Van Ertvelde was born with a short right forearm. A matter of course for her, she thought, but other people seemed to question it. At a certain point she discovered that there was much more behind that disability, in both personal and social terms.
Harry Kessler was an intellectual dandy, and politics and art were the focus of his life. He defended the arts from every form of political interference. As an arts patron, lover of males, publisher, thinker and writer, he pledged himself to no one and refused to live according to other people’s expectations.
A magnificent style – scholarly but vivid and punchy
Ons Brussel
James Ensor (1860–1949) was everything in one: cocky and solitary, baron and bohemian, a misunderstood bourgeois, a peintre maudit who surveyed the world from his ivory tower in Ostend and sought refuge in the salons of Brussels. Min peels away the mask of the mythmaker to create a wonderful portrait of this enigmatic and multi-faceted painter.
A consummate storyteller. Narrative history of the most fascinating kind
Knack
The French Revolution and Napoleon: two epic, captivating tales from western history brought together in a vibrant and compelling narrative. This revised and expanded edition is the result of working on the French translation, published by Flammarion in 2023.
The diary of the ‘Flemish Sartre’, which after reading just one page is impossible to put down.
NRC Handelsblad
Leopold Flam (1912-1995) lived for the greater part of his childhood in a cellar inAntwerp. At the age of thirteen, Flam started keeping a diary that was as candid as it was grim. The fact that he managed to lift himself out of the extreme poverty of his early years rates as a minor miracle. The son of beggars eventually became a professor of philosophy.Leopold Flam published an impressive number of books and articles, but his diaries – which he kept all his life, literally until he was on his deathbed – are among his strongest work. Out of more than two million (!) words, Kristien Hemmerechts and Guido Van Wambeke have compiled a fascinating book.
In this coming-of-age novel we follow Ajali during her final year at secondary school. As a child of Rwandan refugees, she has difficulty finding her place in society. She feels distanced both from her family and from her white classmates. Not a single word is wasted in ‘Companions in Fate’. In a style both clear and incisive, Ingabire has written a relevant and necessary tale about growing up, trauma and love in a family that struggles both with silence and the past.
Olaf's world is shaken by the sudden reappearance of his best friend W. in Antwerp. The news marks the start of thirteen gripping days in which he goes searching for answers. Why did W. disappear? How real are Olaf's memories of their friendship? Hiemstra's debut pays tribute to youth and the idealism that goes with it. An addictive novel with distinctly layered characters, playful in its language and composition.
An outstanding exploration of a little-known niche world.
Humo
Dive into the alienating world of 0xBlixa, the online alter-ego of 31 year old Paul. He's a self-proclaimed 'venture capitalist angel investor in search of inner peace'. Van Meenen examines the dark side of the crypto universe, exposing the intoxicating allure of profit and the risks that come with it. Paul's quest for a slower life clashes with his online presence: gradually more and more cracks appear in his world.
Salumu’s debut novel chafes, clings, touches and shames
De Morgen
Bintje, who carries both Belgium and Congo within her, struggles with the process of forming an identity and with the influence of the socio-political situation on a family. In meticulous prose, Salumu shows what it’s like to grow up as a girl and woman of colour in a white environment. She raises fascinating philosophical questions about identity, generational trauma, admiration and parenthood, and succeeds in deeply affecting the reader with this passionate debut.
The pinnacle of his oeuvre, that can easily rival the absurdist novels of ideas by Camus.
De Standaard
Peter wants to see the Second World War end as quickly as possible, so he joins the resistance. Engaging in arms drops, sabotage missions, and defending a bridge, he witnesses the brutal toll of conflict. According to D’Haese, not only is warfare senseless, all of life is subject to existential doubt. ‘Holy Wrath’, with its acerbic anti-war message, remains relevant and topical today.
‘Sunday’ follows a man from morning till midnight. For 472 pages, we follow every single one of his banal, uninteresting, sometimes embarrassing and frequently irritating thoughts. From this seemingly dull and unlikely premise, Olivier Schrauwen manages to distil a brilliant graphic novel.
The Pellinors have been hunting the Beast for a thousand years - to no avail. Reluctantly, their descendant Pelli decides to accept the quest of his forefathers. With its colourful, dynamic drawings and wondrous events, ‘The Quest’ is bound to appeal to young and old alike.
In preparation for the battle between good and evil that is just a matter of time, Arthur’s father trains him and talks him into believing that nobody can be trusted. In his incomparable fashion, Brecht Evens creates the paranoid world of a child who is doomed to mistake illusion for truth.
Araya moves from Belgium to Thailand to go live with her mother. In simple black-and-white drawings, the semi-autobiographical ‘Araya’ paints a complex portrait of a young woman struggling with her bi-cultural identity, her sexuality, the relationship with her mother and her self-image.
Minimalist with strong dialogue. Simply extremely powerful
De Stripkever
Two strangers at a bar become embroiled in a philosophical discussion about belief, disbelief, science, truth and God, while the bartender acts as a peacekeeper. Ben Gijsemans’ minimalist linework gives us little more than talking heads and the bar with the three characters. ‘The Barflies’ is a remarkable book about conviction, faith and self-image, and ultimately also about persuasion.
An artist and LGTBQ+ activist is mourning the loss of her wife who died unexpectedly of cancer a few years earlier. To break out of her loneliness and her impasse, she leaves for the United States. There she repeats the road trip taken by Carol and Therese, the central characters in the book ‘Carol’ by Patricia Highsmith. 'Magnificent Monster' is a compelling journey in which Pierets offers sophisticated insights on relationships, art and loss.
Grace and Margot are twelve and sixteen when along with their father Saul, they are involved in a terrible car crash. Fifteen years later, the sisters are still struggling with the consequences of the accident. When Saul is linked to the disappearance of a young girl, Grace returns to the place where she grew up. How could the car crash have happened? And what exactly took place that night?
Faded glory reigns in Solnistad. Until someone says they think they spotted superstar Esmeralda Jonagold at the railway station. A rumour mill starts up. Could it be that she will make her great comeback? ‘Murmurs’ is a delightful story about rumours and fantasies that get bigger and bigger.
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.
Paul Goossens mercilessly tears to shreds the history of inequality
Humo
How can it be that the wealth of a handful of people exceeds that of half the world’s population, and why is this obscene concentration of riches not ridiculed out of existence? Questions that matter. Critical research into the mainstays of inequality is essential, even in the light of the greatest challenge of our time, climate change.
Why Nobody Understands Quantum and Everybody Needs to Know Something About It
The scope, depth, and artistry are breathtaking.
John Preskill (Caltech)
Quantum physics gives us an understanding of matter that is so broad, powerful and precise that practically all of modern technology depends upon it. At the same time, quantum is uncommonly hard to fathom. No other theory contradicts our intuition so strongly or has led to so much controversy.
German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once summed up his philosophical project with the words ‘So much the worse for the facts’. It was an audacious argument in favour of theory and against the journalistic concerns of the day. In his book of that name, Anton Jäger, an up-and-coming philosophy talent, collects five years’ worth of essays that take an approach based on political philosophy.
Compelling, moving, astonishingly true to life – a masterpiece!
Herman Van Goethem
In ‘Lost’ Ingrid Vander Veken uses individual stories to describe the lesser-known pathways of the great events of history. She was contacted by the relatives of a family smashed to pieces by the Second World War, asking her whether, based on a paper archive, she would be willing to search for traces of a woman who, along with her young son, fled Nazi persecution for four years only to die in Auschwitz.
Elvis Peeters describes how history operates upon the lives of three generations. Emiel is a child during the Second World War. His daughter Hannelore a ‘no future’ punk moving to London. Grandson Matteo a law student seduced by the extreme right. They all take a stand against their own era and ultimately have to pay the price.
Another gorgeous Timmers spectacle, full of captivating details.
De Morgen on 'The Monster Lake'
Bear can’t find his glasses anywhere, and without them he can’t see properly. On his way to Giraffe, Bear sees all kinds of animals that were never there before. He makes Giraffe curious and they set off together to retrace the route. But now with his glasses on (they were on his head all along), Bear can no longer find the deer, the crocodile, the elephant and the flamingo. Might his glasses be broken?
Reading ‘Mauk’ means digging deep to reach the bottom, but having got there you find gold
De Volkskrant
Mauk looks back on his life with few warm feelings. He remembers above all a tyrannical father who was not in command of his own demons and therefore unleashed them on his wife and child. ‘Mauk’ shows how a violent past marks a person for life. It's a novel about pain, loss of innocence, guilt, loneliness and emotional disfigurement, but also about imagination as a survival strategy. A story both haunting and poignant.
Dazzling and distinctive design combined with subtle humour
Pluizuit on 'Henry'
Brothers Aldo and Rino love Nonna’s spaghetti. When Nonna trips and drops a plate on the floor, the two brothers have to share the remaining pasta. They bolt it down, until a single strand remains. With one end in his mouth, each does all he can to prevent the other from eating the last bit. In this playful and surreal story full of visual humour, friendship, sharing, brotherhood, letting go and getting things into proportion are central.
Sensitive and delicate, with streaks of unruly humour
De Morgen
Slug tells Toad that something is about to happen, without saying exactly what. Together they wait. When the sun rises, it becomes clear to the reader what Slug means but meanwhile Toad has become too agitated to be able to enjoy the sparkling splendour. ‘Just Look!’ appeals to us to look around us, but even more importantly to want, to dare, to see everyday miracles.
