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 woman and a man are standing side by side onstage; in the background the remnants of their living room, cold and bare. Side by side, but not together, they stare into space. Is there not a spark of love or passion left?
A remarkable piece of theatre – playful, surprisingly and painfully funny as well as moving
The Guardian
1 September 2004. Chechen rebels force their way into a Russian school and hold more than a thousand pupils, teachers and parents hostage inside the gymnasium. Three days later the siege comes to a horrendous conclusion. Two surviving school children try to describe the siege in as much detail as possible to get to grips with the terrible events. But before long, their imagination takes over.
Inspector Meerhout becomes entangled in a web of intrigue, death threats, rough sex and pangs of conscience. Motives and potential perpetrators abound, but where lies the truth? ‘Dead water’ is a real page-turner, with a well thought-out plot and fascinating characters.
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.
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.
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.
Buelens writes a forthright terroristic poetry, although with still carefulness and subtility
Jeroen Mettes
‘Home’ investigates what makes us feel at home. Is it a place, a feeling, a language, a wireless connection or a carefully cultivated illusion? At first sight his poetry appears to be difficult, and while it can hardly be called simple, it is never uncomprehensible. Rather, it links the quest for the appropriate linguistic structure with the everyday struggle of the lyrical protagonist.
A dark fairy tale filled with troubling implications and haunting illustrations
Publishers Weekly
‘Panther’ is an unsettling graphic novel about a little girl and her imaginary feline companion. Iconoclastic in his cartooning and page layouts, subtle in his plotting, and deft in his capturing of the human experience, Brecht Evens has crafted a tangled, dark masterwork.
Piglet thinks he’s the strongest and even dares to enter into a trial of strength with Elephant. This results in a number of humorously detailed but doomed attempts to lift the ten-ton animal. The combination of dark tones, supplemented by a striking red and bright blue, make for eye-catching pictures.
Unique in the stream of books published to mark the centenary of World War One
Cobra.be
On 19 August 1914, in a matter of hours, the university city of Leuven transformed from the Belgian military headquarters into a city occupied by German soldiers. Soon after that, Leuven was reduced to ashes. Gerolf Van de Perre and Johanna Spaey portray these dramatic early days of World War I in powerful, poetic images and words.
‘Sugar’ is a comic story about life as seen through the eyes of a cat. In masterfully drawn black-and-white pictures, Serge Baeken juggles with the narrative structure and page layout in this quirky and appealing graphic novel.
A surprisingly good debut from another promising Belgian
De Groene Amsterdammer
Filip tells his four children about Great Granny, who was born almost a century before in the Dutch island colony of Java. Author Michaël Olbrechts blends a piece of family history with the wider social context and does so in a very mature and understated way, with little moments of humour and nostalgia.
Wide Vercnocke is the master of physicality: he knows better than anyone how to depict bodies, muscles and the power of the physical form. Using fine lines and full planes of colour, he creates a unique style, in which characters never look exactly the same twice.
The design is soft and clear, the jokes are cynical and as hard as nails ****
De Standaard
Sometimes the culprit, sometimes the victim, Dickie always finds himself in awkward and embarrassing situations. The contrast that develops between the stylised drawings and the often coarse jokes creates a balance that is rarely found elsewhere.
In a loose, fluid and sketch-like style, Joris Vermassen draws a story based around important themes: saying goodbye, things coming to an end, disappointment and grief. And yet ‘Mad with Joy’, like the statue of the same name, is an ode to life.
A stunning debut by an instant grande dame of the Belgian comic strip
Cutting Edge
The locals of Vierves-sur-Haynes practically worship the stag Gérard, who draws many tourists to the Ardennes village every year. When François accidentally runs Gérard over and kills him, the fat hits the fire. ‘The Miracle of Vierves’ proved Inne Haine’s credentials as a very talented teller of tragicomic tales. An extremely strong debut.
The king has twelve daughters, whom he keeps close to him. The girls feel trapped in a golden cage. Until one day they discover a secret staircase that takes them to a magic garden. In ‘The Magic Garden’ Dendooven blows a breath of fresh air through ‘The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes’ by the Brothers Grimm, and adds a feminist-tinted ending.
‘Beware of Grandma’ tells the story of a remarkable weekend. The star role goes to a quirky grandmother who travels to a hut in the forest with ten children. The story is packed with adventures and outlandish situations, each magnified by one constant: harmony between text and image.
Angela Gutmann, who writes critical reviews of top hotels as a mystery guest, is staying at the famous Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai when, on 26 November 2008, four Pakistani terrorists burst in and start shooting people at random. The atmosphere evoked alternates between soft and melancholic. In between the vibrant, hypnotising lines smoulders a strong suggestion of suffering, loss and the need for (self-)control. This is a book about the barbed wire beneath the skin that we call self-preservation.
In ‘Mona in Three Acts’ we follow Mona from a nine-year-old girl who loses her mother in a car accident to a thirty-five-year-old woman who watches her beloved sick father die. This is a universal story about why we become who we are.
In this adaptation of ‘Puss in Boots’, illustrator Sebastiaan Van Doninck brings tension and life to the story with his powerful compositions, beautiful watercolour tints and bright colours as needed. This classic tale-with-a-twist is a veritable feast for the eye.
Max Herder is getting married to Isabelle Fabry. A Dutchman marrying a Fleming. By expanding Max and Isabelle’s tale into a social story, Reugebrink has, above all, written a subtle, intelligent account of modern Flanders.
Verhulst at his best, perhaps even better than ever: sharp, empathetic and subtle.
NRC Handelsblad
‘Kaddish for a C*nt’ is a diptych about life in a children’s home and its consequences. It is a bitingly written punch in the stomach about children who constantly feel unwanted and unloved.
El Azzouzi describes a group of young people who call themselves ‘Drarrie’ and populate the fringes of society. What begins as an entertaining picaresque novel slowly turns into a chilling story of radicalisation when one of the boys decides to become a martyr…
Six characters try to guess what’s inside the crate they’re about to transport. They all imagine it’s some kind of exotic animal. Though they transport the crate with the greatest care, they can’t prevent it from breaking open repeatedly. And each time a smaller crate appears. A veritable feast!
A vivid depiction of what war does to ‘ordinary people’
Tzum
Mona is sixteen in 1935 when she learns the tricks of the trade as a serveuse: she is expected to use her feminine charms to coax men out of their money and water down their drinks. In the chaos of wartime, she makes a stubborn decision that will turn her friends’ lives upside down. But can she mess with people’s lives the way she messes with their drinks?
‘I Think’takes a close look at thinking from different perspectives. Ingrid Godon does this through a mixture of sketches and stylised, timeless portraits of young and old people, using a soft red to highlight details, while author Toon Tellegen works with gently philosophical reflections.
A tribe is preparing to catch a sabre-toothed tiger. Using a little white rock Olun draws the tiger on a rock, and thus manages to capture the hungry beast in the drawing. Unwittingly, he also lays the foundations for cave drawings. A humorous book full of entertaining details, that invites reading and re-reading.
Valentina, the emperor’s spoilt daughter, collects birds. When she encounters a talking bird in her dreams, a use for the empty ‘golden cage’ is quickly found. Cneut’s prints exceed all the limits of the illustrative powers of expression: this is art with a capital A.
Brilliant use of the narrative and graphic possibilities of comics
Strapazin
In the trenches, the nameless corpse of a German machine gunner attempts to construct his own history. He tries to get to grips with the insanity of war by tempering the brutal reality with stories.
Monaco, May 1968. Just before the start of the Formula 1 Grand Prix, the entire grandstand is witness to a terrible incident. Within seconds, two people are caught up in an accident that will change their lives forever. ‘Monte Carlo’ reads like a film and leaves readers with a desperate longing.
A poetic story about grief which is nevertheless quite funny. The pictures by Sabien Clement complement Anna Vercammen’s words beautifully, and the illustrator’s elegant lines portray the queen’s slow disappearance in an original way.
Jan is nine and he’s perfectly ordinary. He would love to be special, though. Kathleen Vereecken and cartoonist Eva Mouton joined forces to create this story full of humour, in which the illustrations and the text come together to form a happy whole. This book is fresh, funny and heart-warming.
The ‘Job and the Pigeon’ books are a series of first readers about a quick-tempered boy and an assertive pigeon. Any six-year-old will immediately identify with the story, and the book is also packed with original ideas and surprises.
This enthralling novel is a daring, but successful endeavour to paint a probing psychological portrait of a complex personality. At the same time, Hemmerechts develops an intense evocation of an unusual, intriguing relationship, astonishing and sometime provocative in all its directness.
In this novel, Koubaa approaches the style and yearning of Elsschot's best work
De Groene Amsterdammer
Can we really understand the past? Why do we so readily overlook the factor of chance? This makes ‘European Birds’ a novel where the truth is literally at stake: it is about probability and chance, about letting go and the art of not knowing for sure.
With Dewulf, profundity is right on the surface. For anyone taking the trouble to look closely, it is deep enough.
Libris Literature Prize jury
'Raptures' is a comprehensive collection of published pieces by this talented observer. He aims to describe in an accessible way the enchantment he feels when looking at paintings, drawings and photographs, whether by contemporaries or old masters, or indeed at the ever-changing fortunes of his family environment.
In Lauwaert’s hands the essay has found an innovator
Koen Brams
'Perfectly Tailored'is a collection of Dirk Lauwaert’s most important writings about fashion, clothing and film costumes. He writes just as brilliantly about the hilarious aspects of a pattern as about the impudence of Helmut Newton, or about the ethereal Audrey Hepburn in a Givenchy twopiece.
Words fail me. This is a book you will never forget.
Geert Mak
If there was ever a man who rose from the ashes like a phoenix then it was the painter Felix Nussbaum. Mark Schaevers follows Nussbaum on his wanderings through the Nazi years, from Rome to the Italian Riviera, from Paris to Ostend and Brussels.
We live in the illusion we can buy anything. Also love.
Dirk De Wachter
'Love: An Impossible Longing?' is a plea to take love as it comes and behave naturally. Only then, by not forcing something, love can appear gloriously.
Verbeken brings back to life the era of the great expectations
De Volkskrant
Pascal Verbeken registers the small and the large signs of the times. He listens to a multicoloured collection of Belgians and their unique, sometimes tragic stories. ‘Grand Central Belge’ is a requiem for a divided country that does not succeed in chasing its old demons away.
A perfectly accomplished anthology of moving testimonies from literary and other sources.
Biblion
In deeply personal letters, displaying an impressive knowledge of the subject, Piet Chielens and his brother Wim correspond about the war poems of John McCrae, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and many other soldiers who fought in Flanders Fields and found comfort in writing poetry.
A beautifully written travel story, a political history and a philosophical meditation
De correspondent
In a very poetic style and with a keen eye for the unexpected detail, Peter Vermeersch wrote a compelling literary narrative about the post-war experience in former Yugoslavia.
Lucid, captivating, no breaking news but breaking insights
Humo
In 'Beyond Democracy'Luc Huyse analyses in a clearly structured exposé society to the core. Modern society has no segment left in which the market and market logic have not taken over.
Nobody has taught me as much about the euro crisis as Paul De Grauwe.
Paul Krugman
Do the financial crisis and the growing inequality create a new balance of power between the free market and the government? Are we witnessing a turnover of capitalism and does the government take over again?
Provocative and elegant, visionary and stylish. This European dares to tell the hard truths.
Chief Geopolitical Analyst for Stratfor
We, as Europeans, feel as if the future passes right by us. The crisis rages over our continent like a storm and dismantles all our certainties. Are the fundaments of Europe crumbling? And do we actually understand what is going on?
De Vlieger has explored and expanded her horizons with verve.
Jürgen Peeters
Klaar finds an old notebook in her grandfather’s handwriting and starts reading about his adventures in Canada, in 1929. She discovers that her grandfather was on the run for something and why he came back. 'Don’t Go to Canada' is an ingeniously-constructed coming-of-age novel.
A proper young adult book has no age limits and can be enjoyed by everybody. 'One is Enough' is just such a book.
De Standaard
Juliette is growing up in a musical family, but life is no picnic; after the death of her father, her mother proves demanding to live with. The latent tragedy develops inexorably. Els Beerten uses deep psychological insight to bring the affairs of Juliette and her family to life.
Nothing but superlatives. The master’s hand can once again be recognised.
Cutting Edge
While the other animals take life as it comes, the goose and his brother ask themselves questions that are sometimes bigger than themselves. Bart Moeyaert finds the perfect balance between gentle humour and taking their concerns seriously. This lends the stories a timeless and universal character, poetically worded by Moeyaert in his distinctive economical style.
Right before his death in the 1980s, Stefan Hertmans’ grandfather gave his grandson a few notebooks. For years, Hertmans was too afraid to open them – until he finally did and laid bare some unexpected secrets.
