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Fiction

Read more about this genre in the essay A typically Flemish novel, or scroll through our selection of the finest fiction from Flanders.

trans­lated into
  • Cover Sacrifice
    Cover Sacrifice
    Sacrifice
    A real treat. ****
    Vrij Nederland

    Alex Berger, a rather unusual private detective, was chief of police in Brussels in an earlier existence. Now he leads a solitary life and regularly heads out into the natural world. Berger is on a retreat in the Italian Alps when inspector and friend Sara Cavani of Interpol asks him to come back to help investigate a gruesome murder. Alex hesitates, but eventually takes the bait.

  • Cover Just Like the Real Thing
    Cover Just Like the Real Thing
    Just Like the Real Thing
    A mischievous look at life
    Trouw

    Manon and Max, along with their teenage daughter Noah and poodle Kim, seem to be the perfect hipster family. A combination of money and taste has persuaded them to buy a crumbling mansion with ‘great potential’. Beneath the banality, madness lurks. De Coster dissects contemporary relationships in all their manifestations, a minefield in which she is able to exhibit her comic talents.

  • Cover She.
    Cover She.
    She.
    A strong, pure and pared-down debut.
    the low countries

    Thirty-nine-year-old actress Ada presents a theatrical monologue that she has written, in the city where she completed her theatre training years before. It is also the place where her former drama teacher, who she had a relationship with as a student, lives. In Maaike Neuville's semi-autobiographical debut, a woman dares to speak out and honestly investigates where her own boundaries and those of others lie, whilst considering what responsibility comes with a position of power. 

  • Cover The Rightful Finder
    Cover The Rightful Finder
    The Rightful Finder
    If this doesn’t get you to read, you might as well give up.
    De Morgen

    Unpopular eleven-year-old Jimmy's luck changes when a new boy arrives in the class. Tristan Ibrahimi is a refugee from Kosovo and Jimmy throws himself into the coaching of his new friend. When the Ibrahimi family receives a deportation letter, Tristan thinks up a plan in which Jimmy will play a crucial role. Born storyteller Lize Spit unfolds the plot of this topical and moving novella in an extremely exciting way. 

  • Cover - Incomplete
    Cover - Incomplete
    Incomplete
    It’s as if you’ve picked up a book by Patrick Modiano.
    Doorbraak

    ‘Incomplete’ is an intimate novel about the stories we tell. Those we use to build our identities, those about origins and kinship; truth and lies; and hope and disappointment. Like a Flemish Graham Swift, travelling back and forth between sympathetic melancholy and empathetic humour, Bogaert writes about loss and longing and succeeds in making his characters into real people - vulnerable, but at the same time strong enough to withstand some friction. 

  • Cover - Margriete
    Cover - Margriete
    Margriete
    As if Vereecken is writing with a brush in her hand, so precise, apposite and original.
    Literair Nederland

    Jan and Hubrecht van Eyck are world famous, but few people know that they also had a sister who painted. In this novel, Margriete van Eyck is given  the spotlight that she deserves. Vereecken reconstructs the life she might have led and brings to life the story behind 'The Ghent Altarpiece', one of the world’s most iconic paintings.

  • Overal zit mens
    Overal zit mens
    Man is Everywhere. A Murder Fantasy
    One of the increasingly rare writers who still shamelessly regards literature as an artform
    DE STANDAARD ****

    Kasper Kind is a solitary bioengineer who has been placed in charge of a small stretch of woodland that is suffering at the hands of climate change. He is on the point of committing a murder on the public figure Max de Man: a man among men, an intellectual fraud, a moralistic drip. Humour, social criticism, and rich language are ingeniously brought together by Yves Petry in this compelling monologue, with its unforgettable denouement.

  • Cover of the book
    Cover of the book
    The Edges
    A hit. I’m hugely impressed by this strong debut.
    Het Nieuwsblad

    This raw, semi-autobiographical debut tells the story of the unnamed protagonist’s childhood and a night with his former lover. It takes the reader through an emotional landscape that’s reminiscent of Ocean Vuong and Douglas Stuart. In cinematic scenes, Angelo Tijssens depicts the pain and longing of a life spent searching.

  • Half Life
    Half Life
    Half a Life
    Tenderly and mercilessly, Sabi gives voice to three generations in a breath-taking novelistic debut.
    De Morgen

    In this family chronicle that takes the reader from sunny Casablanca to the chilly Netherlands, three women of different generations speak to us. From these three perspectives, each with its own narrative register, ‘Half a Life’ investigates the problem of how to live as a (Moroccan) woman, mother, daughter, grandmother, wife, widow and loved one. With love and empathy, Sabi portrays the lives of the women who have gone before her.

  • Cover 'From Looking Came Seeing'
    Cover 'From Looking Came Seeing'
    From Looking Came Seeing
    A collaboration between two gifted artists which resulted in a magnificent picture book.
    TZUM

    Right from the very first sentence, ‘From Looking Came Seeing’ submerges the reader in the sense of loss felt by a woman whose husband has gone from her life for ever. Godon, with characteristic brilliance, portrays the loneliness, emptiness or aimlessness that his departure brings with it. In a soft, carefully considered palette, she closes down and opens out the woman’s world.  Without doubt both a homage and an invitation to the human gaze.

  • Bodies
    Bodies
    Bodies
    'Bodies' is one of the best things Verhelst has written.
    TZUM

    A man leaves on a voyage of discovery to forbidden territory. He roams a post-apocalyptic no man’s land, in which nature seems to have defeated humankind. ‘Bodies’ reads like a meeting between personal and global trauma, perhaps the result of climate change. Verhelst forces the reader to reflect upon all that we are in danger of losing. More than a dystopian tale, ‘Bodies’ is an ode to language, the imagination and the telling of stories.

  • The Event
    You don’t need metaphorical excesses when you can write like Peter Terrin. *****
    NRC Handelsblad

    'The Event’ is a masterful frame story in which tales of love, loss and growing older subtly flow into one another. At the centre are Willem, a bestselling author, and Juliette, his assistant. The writer has become almost blind towards the end of his life and he dictates his novels to Juliette. After his death, Willem leaves the recordings for his final novel to his beloved assistant, along with the task of finishing the book. Following its publication, Femke, Willem’s young wife, takes Juliette to court. Willem has the final word, after his consciousness is digitally reproduced by scientists.

  • The Turntable
    The new highlight of Dutch war literature. *****
    De Tijd

    Tom Lanoye brings together three closely connected lives in Flanders at the time of the Second World War. Alex, a gifted theatre director and actor, his wife, Jewish star actress Lea Liebermann, and his brother Rik Desmedt, also a director and founder of the Flemish SS. 'The Turntable' is a timeless novel in which the author mercilessly exposes the inner workings of a European war.

  • Cover- The Miracle of Belgium
    Cover- The Miracle of Belgium
    The Miracle of Belgium
    A brilliantly written novel
    De Telegraaf

    Over a period of forty years, master con artist Piet Van Haut has presented himself as director of Johnson & Johnson, as an examining magistrate, and as the CEO of Belgian Railways. He has thereby stolen millions. Inghels not only tells the story of a real-life swindler, but also recounts his own adventures in writing a book about that criminal. He plays an interesting game with the boundary between fact and fiction. A shocking story about heroism, vanity, greed, ambition and manipulation, not just on the part of the con artist but on the part of the author too.

  • Brandingen
    Brandingen
    Breakers
    ‘Breakers’ is a compact, visually oriented novella with a dash of magic realism.
    MappaLibri

    Five lifeless bodies wash up on a beach close to a couple’s home, followed not long afterwards by the body of a child. From that moment on, everything between the man and woman who live in the beachside house will be different. Their safe world belongs to the past, now that the refugee issue has disturbed their harmonious world. Torn between guilt and impotence, the man and woman drift further and further apart until their relationship hits the rocks. 

  • Honingeter
    Honingeter
    Honeyeater
    The atmosphere is vaguely reminiscent of Ben Lerner, Samuel Beckett and also the early Peter Handke.
    De Morgen

    Sibel, Ömer and Wernicke all live illegally at Istanbul airport. They symbolize a new generation of adults who do not feel at home in the countries where they were born, nor in their parents’ native lands. In this sensitive debut novel, language and the inability to understand one another are central, as is the impossibility of feeling truly at home if you are unable to speak your mother tongue.

  • Vaders die rouwen
    Vaders die rouwen
    Fathers Who Mourn
    An impressive story collection, in which Carmien Michels proves herself an extremely intelligent and sensitive storyteller.
    Het Parool

    In her debut story collection, Carmien Michels exposes the fragility of fatherhood. Her six short stories are really mini novels, in which her characters face illness, memories of a difficult childhood, stalking, rape and death. All fathers have a hard time, but some rather more than others. They fall short of expectations, miss their children, or struggle to emulate their own fathers. Michels’ characters echo the universe of Roald Dahl.  

  • Cover - Crackling Skulls
    Cover - Crackling Skulls
    Crackling Skulls
    Penetrating and splendid, full of brilliant, somewhat harrowing images
    NRC Handelsblad

    A maverick of Flemish literature, Roger Van de Velde has had a lasting impact on the current generation of Flemish authors. The novel 'Crackling skulls' reflects his unique life. In twenty powerful short stories, Van de Velde portrays his ‘companions in misery’, people living on the fringes of society, with whom he found himself in psychiatric institutionsEmpathy, combined with a powerful talent for observation, an eye for detail and literary flair, produces compelling portraits of lost souls.

  • Cover - Pluto
    Cover - Pluto
    Pluto
    Lara Taveirne – be sure to remember the name.
    De Telegraaf

    Antonia grows up along with her three half-sisters and her flamboyant mother in the Flanders of the 1980s and ’90s. Her father is out of the picture. While she grows up, she discovers who he was. 'Pluto' is a multifaceted family story in which strong but essentially lonely women are central. With evocative writing full of sensual details, Taveirne creates an intimate world and presents a completely authentic view of major themes: loss, the desire for love and safely, the inability to form close relationships, absent fathers and the lack of an ‘ordinary mother’. 

  • What Only We Know
    What Only We Know
    What Only We Know
    Beautiful! It’s hard not to be moved by the tender bond between brother and sister.
    Het Parool

    Nour is seven and incurably ill. But she keeps smiling and playing, whenever possible. While her parents are completely focused on her illness, the girl is growing closer to her older brother. He tells her stories to try and take her mind off the pain. Brother and sister imagine a universe of their own in which they are safe and connected. An ode to imagination, written in pared down language, somewhere between poetry and prose.

  • A Revolver Shot
    A Revolver Shot
    A Revolver Shot
    Loveling gives us an uncompromising, heart-rending glimpse into the emotions of someone who repeatedly gets the short end of the stick in life.
    Annelies Verbeke

    Marie and her sister Georgine, who is eleven years younger, live together in the family home after the death of their parents. Both sisters fall in love with their neighbour Luc Hancq, but he strings them along, leading to his murder and Marie's madness. In this brilliantly structured book, with its virtuoso use of perspective, Loveling takes the reader on a harrowing journey through the protagonist’s psyche. 

  • Desire Lines
    A heart-rending, silent scream, a struggle with the giants known as hurt and loss and an attempt to say the unsayable.
    Knack

    After seven years Mari is still in deep mourning for Tully, her deafblind sister for whom she was like a mother. She decides to leave her husband Felix at home and sets off on a walk towards the sea, in search of a new beginning. During her journey, she meets some remarkable people, who encourage her to formulate profound insights into mourning, relationships with others and the inadequacy of language. 

     

  • Silence is My Mother Tongue
    Silence is My Mother Tongue
    Silence is My Mother Tongue
    Stunning. A splendid, compulsive reading experience
    Maaza Mengiste

    The young, headstrong Saba wants to go to school, whereas her brother Hagos is unable to speak, read and write. The siblings, who have an extremely close bond, both refuse to conform to the roles imposed on them by gender and society. A compelling, vivid novel about the everyday challenges, feelings, intimacy, hopes and fears of refugees in an East-African camp.

  • Minyan
    Personal, genuinely interested and unbiased. No wonder that the people she speaks to are prepared to open up to her.
    Zin Magazine

    The Orthodox-Jewish community continues to capture the imagination. In ‘Minyan’, Margot Vanderstraeten gives the reader a glimpse into this world by interviewing several prominent figures. As she reports on her Hasidic neighbours, who live so close yet whose lives are so different, her tone is sometimes serious, sometimes light-hearted, but always genuinely involved.

  • Cape Ursus
    Bontenakel proves that he is a superb storyteller ****
    De Standaard

    A natural disaster is destroying Cape Ursus, a remote island in the middle of the North-Atlantic. The small community that lives there in the late nineteenth century is descended from castaways and has to fend for itself. Young teacher Ellie dreams of leaving the island, but her mother’s dementia is stopping her. And then she discovers someone else with serious plans to leave the island. 

  • Cover of the book
    Cover of the book
    High Tide, Blue Moon
    Janzing draws you into an Impressionist painting and makes you part of the scene ****
    De Standaard

    Late nineteenth century: Léonie Osterrieth organizes salons in her grand townhouse. She has a soft spot for explorers and wants to help Adrien de Gerlache to become the first human being to overwinter on the South Pole. Thanks to her, the Belgica sets sail from the port of Antwerp. Drawing on the correspondence between Léonie and her entourage, Janzing reconstructs the experiences of captain and crew.

  • Cover of Nothing
    Cover of Nothing

    A dog asks a cat to tell it something, anything at all. But the cat can’t think of a single thing. Then the dog flips things around and challenges the cat to think of nothing. It blows a fuse in the cat’s head: there’s always something. Something or nothing, that’s the question in this fun and philosophical picture book.

     

  • Cover of Trophy
    Cover of Trophy
    Trophy
    Schoeters overwhelms the reader with a rhetorical force borrowed from thrillers and from Tolkien. ****
    De Standaard

    Hunter White lives for the big game hunt. An immensely wealthy American share trader, he goes to Africa to shoot a rhinoceros, the last of the Big Five he has yet to bag. In this page-turner Schoeters takes us into the twisted mind of a Western hunter. White is guided by a morally dubious compass as he weighs up the value of a life, whether of a person or of an animal. A compelling ode to wild nature and a sharp critique of how we relate to Africa.

  • Cover of Harvest
    Cover of Harvest
    Harvest
    A heart-rending, harrowing book. Rhythmical prose, with great authority. ****
    NRC

    The Romanian Alina travels to Sicily with her eleven-year-old son Lucian to work in tomato cultivation, in order to earn money that’s badly needed at home. They have high hopes, but the reality is shocking. This socially engaged page-turner is not just a book about contemporary labour migration, exploitation and oppression, it is above all a story of resilience, the power of motherhood and women’s self-reliance.

  • Cover of All the Blue
    Cover of All the Blue
    All the Blue
    A flawless novel with an atmosphere and intensity reminiscent of Graham Swift and Ian McEwan.
    Trouw

    Peter Terrin takes you with him in this tragic, compelling love story to a crucial episode in the lives of Simon and Carla in the late 1980s. Despite their difference in age, Simon and Carla throw themselves into a passionate relationship, with far-reaching consequences. ‘All the Blue' is a sensitive and sensual novel about friendship and love, and about the delicate quest for an identity of one’s own.

  • Cover of Beter Late Than Never
    Cover of Beter Late Than Never
    Better Never Than Late
    Radiant fiction. This essential book shines a light on personal experiences of migration in ways that illuminate and surprise.
    Bernardine Evaristo

    In this intriguing mosaic of ten stories Unigwe chronicles the unusual lives of a group of Nigerian immigrants who are making their way in Belgium. They all left their country in the hope of a better life, but the pain of missing Nigeria is a heavy price to pay. Readers will be moved by the realistic, recognisable characters and Unigwe’s empathetic analysis of a migrant community, the situation they fled and the disappointments in their new country.

  • Trains and Rooms
    At times poignant, at times shocking, but just as often witty enough to make you burst out laughing.
    Cutting Edge

    Annelies Verbeke interweaves more than four thousand years’ worth of literature from around the world. Inspired by better and lesser known classics from before 1900, the fifteen pieces in this collection form a kaleidoscope full of interrelated moments. ‘Trains and Rooms’ is like a hall of mirrors in which new doors keep opening up into other eras and narratives. It reinforces her reputation as the ‘Queen of the Flemish short story’.

  • Cover of I'm not Here
    Cover of I'm not Here
    I'm Not Here
    Spit set the bar high, then launched herself over it with linguistic agility and skill
    De Tijd

    Leo has been together with her boyfriend Simon for ten years. Their happiness is shattered after he comes home excitedly with a brand-new tattoo behind his ear. Simon’s sudden odd behaviour turns out to be the prelude to a psychotic episode, caused by a bipolar disorder. Spit convincingly portrays the oppressiveness, manoeuvrability and exhaustion resulting from life with a psychotic partner. 

  • Cover of Wild Woman
    Cover of Wild Woman
    Wild Woman
    His crowning achievement. Olyslaegers masterfully takes us back to the time of the Great Iconoclasm and Bruegel. *****
    De Standaard

    During the turbulent 1560s, trade is flourishing in Antwerp and Beer’s inn becomes a refuge for freethinkers and trailblazers. Ten years later, Beer, now in Amsterdam, looks back on the events that prompted him to flee his native city. ‘Wild Woman’ is a monumental novel about the longing for unity and the discovery of an inner truth, about friendship, community, faith and betrayal. With his rich, sumptuous and debauched language, Olyslaegers drags you into the dark alleyways of the 16th century.

  • Cover of Raw and As If
    Cover of Raw and As If
    Raw and As If
    ‘Raw and As If’ long clings to your skin ****
    Het Nieuwsblad

    A young woman murders the man with whom she’s been having an affair for some time. ‘Raw and As If’ is not just a gripping ‘whydunnit’ but an expressively written psychological story about the consequences of a loveless childhood. Tack’s unemotional style builds the tension and sustains the dark world and psyche of the narrator.

  • Cover of Bump
    Cover of Bump
    Bump
    A gem of a book that is as fragile and strong as her characters
    The Low Countries

    ‘Bump’ is a poetic fable. Through the triangular relationship between the central characters, it beautifully reveals how difficult it can be to integrate other people into your own desires, and how miraculous moments of connection are. Tender, brief dialogues offer glimpses into a past marked by bereavement.

  • Cover of Jam Street
    Cover of Jam Street
    Jam Street
    'Jam Street’ is chockful of beautiful observations and stylistic gems.
    Haarlems Dagblad

    ‘Jam Street’ is a poetic story about a culture clash in a deprived neighbourhood in Flanders, and it is also an ode to the beauty of the banal. The novel describes the brutal and raw reality of life in the margins, yet it is soft and tender at the same time.

  • Cover of Pork Chops
    Cover of Pork Chops
    Pork Chops
    De Gryse knows how to grab a reader by the scruff of the neck
    De Morgen

    Marieke is the youngest of four sisters in a family with an absentee father and an unstable mother. She works in a care home, where she’s happiest in the kitchen. 'Pork Chops' a tragicomic tale about sticking up for yourself and about caring – but above all it’s an ode to comfort food.

     

  • Cover of Colombe
    Cover of Colombe
    Colombe
    Beautifully written debut*****
    Boeklovers

    A tender novel capturing the soberness of rural life, the daily routine and the things that are unspoken. About a subtly developing love triangle, with eye for nuance and the complexity of the multifaceted love between the characters.

  • Cover of Lightning Stone
    Cover of Lightning Stone
    Lightning Stone
    A fascinating and intense homage to his father
    Trouw

    In ‘Lightning Stone’ Johan de Boose takes the reader on a journey across the US. With his warm, affectionate pen de Boose evokes a vivid world, cleverly alternating between contemplative-philosophical and familiar, as well as striking the occasional humorous note.

  • Cover of All Is Safe Here
    Cover of All Is Safe Here
    All Is Safe Here
    A raw, physical account of grief and goodbyes****
    HUMO

    A beautifully written debut about loss and (step) motherhood. With immense compassion, Van Offel draws psychological portraits that cannot be viewed independently from identity politics and the wider political situation in Israel.

  • Cover of The Ascent
    Cover of The Ascent
    The Ascent
    A sparkling docudrama
    HUMO

    A captivating journey through a turbulent century, in which Hertmans once again demonstrates his mastery at interweaving fiction and nonfiction.

  • Cover - Reports from the Void
    Cover - Reports from the Void
    Reports from the Void
    Beautiful lines in a danse macabre
    De Vlaardinger

    ‘Reports from the Void’ is not a novel but an ego document: a collection of excerpts from letters and diary-style notes. Right from page one we realise that the author is not in a good place. We only find out why at the end. Until then, Verhulst gives us a bleak glimpse of his path to self-destruction. 

  • Cover 'We, the Foam'
    Cover 'We, the Foam'
    We, the Foam
    As if Mark Oliver Everett of Eels tried his hand at writing fiction.
    Cutting Edge

    In eleven short stories, Van Thuyne introduces the reader to her highly authentic and eccentric universe. She creates a universe peopled by characters who are slowly losing their grip on reality. Her vivid and filmic stories are exercises in controlled madness. ‘We, the Foam’ is highly unconventional and truly remarkable.

  • The Immaculate
    A masterpiece
    Knack

    Marcel returns to his grandmother Andrea’s house, hoping to uncover the secrets of the past. He wants to know why he was named after his grand uncle Marcel, Andrea’s brother, who died on the Eastern Front. 

  • Cover - The Raccoon
    Cover - The Raccoon
    The Raccoon
    Ingenious and absolutely unpredictable
    Knack

    ‘The Raccoon’ is both hilarious and moving. With prose drenched in the vernacular and flirting with the techniques of oral narrative, Skorobogatov shows himself to be an heir of the Russian story-telling tradition of Gogol. With this book, he delivers an ode to the little man, or the raccoon, in each of us.

  • Gloria
    A slender, but major novel. *****
    De Standaard

    Koen Sels has been struggling with depression and feelings of worthlessness for many years. Can the arrival of ‘leading lady’, his baby daughter Gloria, break the negative spiral of his thoughts?

  • Cover - The beauty we share
    Cover - The beauty we share
    He, She, and the Inevitable Us
    Challenging and haunting. Ait Hamou is emerging as an important voice of his generation.
    De Standaard

    Without realising it, the young Belgian-Moroccan Soumia became an accomplice in a terrorist attack and was given a prison sentence. Tough old Fleming Luc lost his wife Maria in the attack. He is unable to let go of the past and rails at ‘those bloody foreigners’ to anyone prepared to listen. Ish Ait Hamou goes in search of what binds us together, our longing for forgiveness and acceptance and our ability to understand each other in an increasingly polarised society. 

  • Cover - Volt
    Cover - Volt
    Volt
    Six’s descriptions are peerless: he depicts powerful scenes with clinical precision, much like a miniaturist or a film director. ****
    De Standaard

    After a worldwide fire and the collapse of neoliberalism, the financial elite has withdrawn to a tropical island. There they continue their affluent lives while the soil shrivels up beneath the unforgiving sun and the indigenous population is oppressed, terrorised and massacred. ‘Volt’ is dystopian and reverberates with echoes from classics such as George Orwell’s ‘1984’, Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ and Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’.

  • Cover The Sea-of-Firefly
    Cover The Sea-of-Firefly

    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.

  • Cover Here
    Cover Here
    Here
    A subtle novel, stripped of all context. ****
    De Volkskrant

    '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.

  • Cover The Year of the Dog
    Cover The Year of the Dog
    The Year of the Dog
    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’.

  • Cover A Room in Ostend
    Cover A Room in Ostend
    A Room in Ostend
    A wealth of beautifully composed stories
    Tzum

    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.

  • Cover of The Reward
    Cover of The Reward
    The Reward
    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.

  • Cover of The Harvest of the Plums
    Cover of The Harvest of the Plums
    The Harvest of the Plums
    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. 

  • Cover - Hinterland
    Cover - Hinterland
    Hinterland
    This novel grabs you by the scruff of the neck.
    De Morgen

    '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’? 

     

  • Cover The Towers of Beirut Paul Verrept
    Cover The Towers of Beirut Paul Verrept
    The Towers of Beirut
    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.

  • Cover Marc Reugebrink Salt
    Cover Marc Reugebrink Salt
    Salt
    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.

  • Cover The Ghosts
    Cover The Ghosts
    The Ghosts
    A sobering novel of ideas
    Knack

    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.

  • Cover Night Parents Saskia de Coster
    Cover Night Parents Saskia de Coster
    Night Parents
    A book of epic proportions *****
    De Volkskrant

    '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.

  • Cover International Bakery
    Cover International Bakery
    International Bakery (Formerly Cinema Royale)
    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.

  • Cover Cursed Wood
    Cover Cursed Wood
    Cursed Wood
    A scintillating novel ****
    De Standaard

    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.

  • Patricia
    An intimate, multi-layered female portrait
    De Morgen

    Astrid is a successful events manager and mother. When her iPhone falls into her son’s bath after a busy day at work, something snaps in her. Impulsively, she walks out of the house and drives out of her residential suburb. 

    In controlled prose, Peter Terrin sketches a surreal and oppressive portrait of a woman who loses it in an apparently safe and everyday environment. 

  • Cover Tell Someone
    Cover Tell Someone
    Tell Someone
    An interesting new voice in European literature
    Die Zeit

    Amazigh, a young Moroccan, ends up behind bars after attempting to get his revenge on his French father. There’s only one way he’ll get out of prison: a one-way ticket to the French frontlines in World War I. Rachida Lamrabet tells a story that is forgotten all too often: that of the soldiers from the colonies who were swept up in a war that was not theirs.

  • Cover Dochter
    Cover Dochter
    Daughter
    Shockingly raw and enchanting in equal measure *****
    Knack

    Daughter is a girl with learning disabilities. She does not recognise cruelty, or sexual abuse, when it is done to her, or when she does it to someone else. The events are shocking to the reader, but not to Daughter herself. The disconcerting effect of this contrast is reinforced by the book’s extremely efficient, economical style: brief chapters with short sentences that paint a clear and credible picture of the reasoning of a mentally deficient and vulnerable girl.

  • Cover Before Forgetting
    Cover Before Forgetting
    Before Forgetting
    ‘Before Forgetting' is a dance. A painting of words. A hand touching our sorrow.
    De Standaard

    Peter Verhelst’s mother dies unexpectedly. He witnesses his father’s grief and must also find his own way of coping. Still, this is neither a book about mothers, nor a book about death, but rather a fervent ode to our floundering, tentative resistance to meaninglessness and sorrow. Verhelst struggles tooth and nail to create something vital—something that could continue to remind us, so that ultimately we can forget.

  • Cover Misery Loves Company. A Life In Stories
    Cover Misery Loves Company. A Life In Stories
    Misery Loves Company. A Life In Stories
    Incredible to see how much beauty someone can produce in half a century
    De Telegraaf

    Hugo Claus is the internationally acclaimed author of dozens of plays, novels and collections of poetry. But over the course of 50 years he also wrote many short stories. A half-century filled with grotesque nightmares and charming scenes of love and loss, with mysterious and comical characters populating Claus’ characteristic bitter-sweet world.

  • Cover Bread
    Cover Bread
    Bread
    Haunting. With short chapters, Elvis Peeters keeps the reader in a stranglehold.
    Cutting Edge

    A boy grows up in a village where war threatens. Then, the supermarket at which the boy works is bombed into the ground. Leaving is now the only option. In confident, crystal-clear language, ‘Bread’ tells the gripping, poetic coming-of-age story of a boy who is not given the chance to enjoy his youth.

  • Cover Who Was the Hat Maker?
    Cover Who Was the Hat Maker?
    Who Was the Hatter?
    A marvel of penmanship *****
    De Volkskrant

    Twelve years after they had a short-lived but passionate relationship, the reserved Hermine and the tormented, suicidal writer Didier, drive to a conference in Vienna together. In this autobiographical love tragedy, Zvonik investigates with a delicate pen and psychological finesse to what extent it is possible to love someone, while at the same time keeping your distance.

  • Cover North
    Cover North
    North
    Wild, dark, romantic and almost addictively well-written ****
    Focus Knack

    ‘North’ is a carefully crafted and addictively well-written debut novel about ‘indecision in the choice’: the choice between two men, between art and life, between Vancouver and the harsh life in the north, and between the musical styles that are entwined with each location.

  • Cover Beauty Will Rage Within Me Until the Day I Die
    Cover Beauty Will Rage Within Me Until the Day I Die
    Beauty Will Rage Within Me Until the Day I Die
    A sardonic roller coaster
    Knack

    In the world of ‘Beauty will rage within me until the day I die’, everything is returned to ashes by warfare. Everything, except for the memory of what once was humanity and the sense of humor that Hazim Kamaledin uses to describe the fate of his deceased doppelgänger.

  • Cover - Een huis voor Harry
    Cover - Een huis voor Harry
    Congo Blues
    A masterful conjurer of tone and mood ****1/2
    De Morgen

    Morgan is a jazz pianist from Brussels, with Congolese roots. He has banished the images of his childhood in the tropics from his memories… Until an out-of-the-blue encounter changes his life, that is. This is a novel about ‘half-castes’, and how the Belgian colonizer used to treat these mixed race children, separating them forever from their biological family.

  • Cover Cleansing
    Cover Cleansing
    Cleansing
    Lanoye leaves no stone unturned in a ruthless novel
    De Morgen

    Gideon Rottier is a loner with a speech impediment and an unusual job. His life takes a different turn when Youssef, a refugee, becomes his new colleague. After an awkward start, they become best friends. But when Youssef disappears and leaves Gideon to look after his wife and children, things take an ugly turn.

  • Cover Cocaine
    Cutting Edge Award
    Cover Cocaine
    Cutting Edge Award
    Cocaine
    Irresistibly funny
    Noordhollands Dagblad

    'Cocaine' is a no-holds-barred celebration of the seemingly limitless possibilities of the human imagination. It is a literary rollercoaster ride in the very best Russian tradition.

  • Cover - Shadow Zone
    Hercule Poirot Prize
    Cover - Shadow Zone
    Hercule Poirot Prize
    Shadow Zone
    A glittering, psychologically-charged firework! *****
    Hebban

    Kate works as a nurse in a psychiatric clinic for VIPs in London. Her life turns into a living hell when it turns out that a tweet with confidential information about a patient has been sent out into the world from her account. She loses her job and is hounded by the paparazzi. To make matters worse, there is someone else who’s got it in for her. A wonderfully-written, triumphant crime novel with strong characterisations, in which the various plot threads are cleverly interwoven.

  • Cover Mazel Tov
    Cover Mazel Tov
    Mazel tov
    A must-read for everyone *****
    De Standaard

    '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.

  • cover The People Healer
    ECI Prize
    cover The People Healer
    ECI Prize
    The People Healer
    Crystal clear literary magic *****
    De Volkskrant

    ‘The People Healer’ is a novel about the invisible forces that guide people’s lives, and about the immutability of those forces. The First World War, Belgian colonialism in the Congo, and the present day are all woven into the fabric of the story. The storylines Koen Peeters sketches eventually converge in a quest to fulfil a longing that every person feels: to discover oneself and to give meaning to one’s own life.

  • Cover Hallelujah
    Cover Hallelujah
    Hallelujah
    Bizarre, mysterious, incredibly powerful
    Trouw

    ‘Hallelujah’ is a feverish, yet also humorous collection about inevitable loss and the temptation of the clean slate.

  • Cover Grimly Good
    Cover Grimly Good

    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.

  • Cover Billie & Seb
    Cover Billie & Seb
    Billie & Seb
    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.

  • Cover Audrey & Anne
    Cover Audrey & Anne
    Audrey & Anne
    Fresh, alluring and powerful
    Flanders Today

    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.

  • Cover Sometimes I'm an Explorer
    Cover Sometimes I'm an Explorer

    In unconnected short texts, Ruth Mellaerts draws the reader into familiar situations, memories, thoughts and feelings. The interaction between words and illustrations lifts the book to a higher level and creates calm and beauty as well as words to ruminate on.

  • Cover Scorpio
    Cover Scorpio
    The Scorpion’s Head
    Once again, a fantastic thriller that you want to read in one sitting.
    Het Nieuwsblad

    After a weekend away with the family, 36 year old Gaelle wakes up in the secure wing of a psychiatric hospital in Berlin, Germany. The police suspect her of attempting to murder her son. She manages to escape and is determined to uncover the truth.

  • Cover The House of Salmon
    Cover The House of Salmon
    The House of Salmon
    Believable and original, honest and authentic.
    Tzum

    ‘The House of Salmon’ is a novel about people living within a tradition who are tempted to turn this tradition into an absolute law.

  • Cover She Alone
    Cover She Alone
    She Alone
    Strong meat, but served in a very digestible form
    Humo

    ‘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.

  • Cover Something Inside Us Bowed Low
    Cover Something Inside Us Bowed Low
    Something Inside Us Bowed Low
    Breathtakingly beautiful *****
    De Standaard

    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.

  • Cover Will
    The Times Book of the Year
    Cover Will
    The Times Book of the Year
    WILL
    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.

  • Cover The Convert
    Cover The Convert
    The Convert
    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.

  • Cover Yucca
    Cover Yucca
    Yucca
    Brilliant. A moving tribute to the subconscious
    Vrij Nederland

    ‘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.

  • Cover The Melting
    Cover The Melting
    The Melting
    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...

  • Cover Hair
    Cover Hair
    Hair
    Beautiful in its simplicity, honesty and humanity
    De Leesfabriek

    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.

  • Cover Life Seen from Below
    Cover Life Seen from Below
    Life Seen from Below
    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.

  • Cover - I must
    Cover - I must

    ‘I Must’ is a collection of powerful portraits and philosophical texts full of compassion, vulnerable and confrontational at the same time. It exposes a merciless and terrible human tangle of obligations and expectations. Godon and Tellegen inspire thoughts, give a name to feeling and trigger involvement.

  • Cover The Very Tired Man
    Cover The Very Tired Man
    The Very Tired Man and the Woman who Passionately Loved Bonsai
    Pure beauty
    De Wereld Draait Door

    A woman reads a wanted ad in the newspaper one day: “man seeks woman to die for”. When she rings the number, she hears someone sigh. She’s never heard such a beautiful sigh before.
    In this picture book for adults, Kaatje Vermeire’s pictures and Peter Verhelst’s words each tell a story of their own. The reader combines the two, creating an artwork on every page.

  • Cover Blindly
    Cover Blindly
    Blindly
    A wonderful style, with gems of sentences
    Metro

    A summer Friday on the coast. Jonas is in an apartment with a view of the sea. He sits facing the door, waiting, a pistol in his lap. 'Blindly' is a humane, poignant tale of beauty and decay, deeds and dreams, the chosen and the damned.

  • Cover The Antelope Knife
    Cover The Antelope Knife
    Find Me Gone
    An exquisite entry into the literary arena
    De Volkskrant

    Belgium in the 1990s. Hannah and Sophie are twelve and inseparable, the way only twelve-year-old girls can be. But when Hannah falls for the charismatic Damiaan their friendship changes. Then, after a late-night party in the village, Sophie fails to come home.

  • Cover Monkey Business
    Cover Monkey Business
    Monkey Business
    Hurtles along like a high-speed train and has you in its grip right from page one
    De Leeswolf

    This novel spans the last eight hours in the life of Haruki, a Japanese macaque who ‘lives’ in a neurophysiology laboratory. The story is told from the perspective of Haruki himself, as he reflects on virtually every aspect of being an experimental animal, while awaiting ‘his last major experiment’ – being put down.

  • Cover Cinderella
    Cover Cinderella
    Cinderella
    So confusing, intriguing, dark and horrifying that you want to devour every single page *****
    Cutting Edge

    'Cinderella' is a semi-autobiographical novel about the son of a prostitute who opens a brothel and becomes his mother’s pimp. It is a grand novel, written in raw prose, tackling the tribulations of running a brothel and the inescapable relationship between mother and child. It is a refreshing combination of filth and the sublime, of tragedy and comedy.

  • Cover What Only We Hear
    Cover What Only We Hear
    What Only We Hear
    A book that deserves to be read by many
    Cutting Edge

    ‘What only we hear’ sketches the deeply human ups and downs of life in a large modern city. De Coster subtly intertwines the fates of her characters, with her typical stylistic bravura and humour.

  • Cover Wanderland
    Cover Wanderland
    Wanderland
    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.

  • Cover Portrait of an Unknown Girl
    Cover Portrait of an Unknown Girl
    Portrait of an Unknown Girl
    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.

  • Even Birds Fall
    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.

  • Cover Silent Ground
    Cover Silent Ground
    Silent Ground
    Excellent, excellent, excellent!
    Josh Pachter

    Glasgow, 1983. One stormy November night, six-year-old Rosie Thompson disappears from the bedroom she shares with her twin sister Ruby. No trace of her can be found. Thirty years later, someone leaves a message in the confession book of an old Scots clergyman: ‘I’m sorry about what happened to Rosie Thompson. May God forgive me.’

  • Cover - Hunt
    Cover - Hunt
    Hunt
    A novel full of suspense which will leave you dazed
    De Morgen

    In ‘Hunt’, as in his previous novels, Elvis Peeters succeeds in raising a fascinating moral issue through what appears to be just a story: what would happen if animals could think too? ‘Hunt’ depicts the biotope of man as an animal among animals. Will human hegemony remain in place, or do we need to share our dominant position with others?

  • Cover Hotel Rozenstok
    Cover Hotel Rozenstok
    Hotel Rozenstok
    A colourful and intense comedy *****
    De Standaard

    Christophe Vekeman decides, after a series of well received but not particularly successful novels, to give up writing. In ‘Hotel Rozenstok’, Vekeman presents an original and persistent challenge to all aspects of writing, balancing on the tightrope between fiction and reality, between fantasy and realism.

  • Cover - Dirty Skin
    Cover - Dirty Skin
    Dirty Skin
    Rough-and-tumble versions you have never heard before
    De Morgen

    In ’Dirty Skin’ anthropologist Marita de Sterck has collected forty Flemish folktales, uncensored and as close as possible to the oral tradition. Sometimes farcical and often grotesque, they are jam-packed with violence, lust, jealousy and the black arts.

  • Cover- The Boy, the Hornbill, the Elephant, the Tiger and the Girl
    Cover- The Boy, the Hornbill, the Elephant, the Tiger and the Girl
    The Boy, the Hornbill, the Elephant, the Tiger and the Girl
    So beautiful that you often want to read passages twice.
    Friesch Dagblad

    A boy is taken to a secret valley by the men of his village, where he is to be initiated into everything a man needs to know. Fear, courage, loss and death are the themes that emerge from Peter Verhelst’s poetic words. Carll Cneut complements the story with pictures that show the beauty of nature and the insignificance of humans.

  • Cover moon and sun
    Cover moon and sun
    Moon and Sun
    An awe-inspiring and terrifying achievement
    HP/ De Tijd

    Against the background of a community trapped between tradition and change, between past and present, ‘Moon and Sun’ is a family saga about background and poverty, honour and betrayal – a tale of fathers and sons and the soul of an island.

  • Cover Love, so to speak
    Cover Love, so to speak
    Love, so to speak
    Vivid, tantalising and almost Nabokovian
    De Morgen

    ‘Love, So To Speak’ is a stylistic, inimitable dark game between three characters in a love triangle in search of a foothold in a rocky life. Whether love can offer them that is very much the question. A virtuoso blend of philosophy and satire.

  • Cover The Art of Crashing
    Cover The Art of Crashing
    The Art of Crashing
    A disturbing, poetic and enchanting book
    WDR 3

    A novel about the ‘gap' inherent in the human condition and about the equally human desire to keep filling that gap with stories. It is a wonderful, stylistically astonishing trip that completely overwhelms the reader.

  • Cover Thirty Days
    Cover Thirty Days
    Thirty Days
    A courageous, inspiring and enthralling book *****
    De Standaard

    ‘Thirty Days’ is a novel about goodness and compassion. The book finds the perfect balance between sensitivity and humour, hopefulness and criticism, cheer and despair.

  • Cover Fall
    Cover Fall
    Fall
    Pitilessly tense, stylistically strong and more suggestion than slaughter.*****
    De Standaard

    In ‘Fall’ Roderik Six goes armed with stylistic brilliance in search of the ultimate evil, and what loneliness can do to a person. He proves himself a master of suggestion: his ironic narrative style and sparse, subtle use of language create the perfect atmosphere and tension.

  • Cover Blood Book
    Cover Blood Book
    Blood Book
    One of the great stylists of our contemporary literature
    NRC Handelsblad

    ‘Blood Book’ is an ironic retelling of the first five books of the Bible. These stories are awash with blood, but thanks to their potency and popularity they constitute what may be the most important book in the history of mankind: the Pentateuch. Verhulst tackles the Old Testament with his characteristic linguistic flair, replete with folksy idioms.

  • Cover Heaven
    Cover Heaven

    In this gem of a story, Bart Moeyaert writes with surprising lightness about loneliness and dying. Gerda Dendooven’s robust green-and-black drawings capture the tenderness of death and the strangeness of this imminent demise.

  • Cover The Bench
    Cover The Bench

    ‘The Bench’ is the moving story of a man overwhelmed by loneliness and anxiety. The poetic text and the atmospheric illustrations exude heartfelt melancholy and mournful solitude. Godon makes pain, desperation and yearning tangible.

  • Cover Marie
    Cover Marie
    Marie
    A Shakespearean drama with the allure of a Quentin Tarantino film.
    Cobra

    Vekeman paints sharp contrasts: between love and death, between the isolated loner and village life, between the sophisticated style and the striking primitivism of the characters and between the absurd humour and the serious topics broached. The charm of this book lies in the impossible combination of contrasts, which, one way or another, are ultimately drawn together.

  • Cover Thieves of Passion
    Cover Thieves of Passion
    Thieves of Passion
    An ingeniously constructed book, rich in language and nuance
    De Morgen

    'Thieves of Passion’ is an inspired epos about the youthful years that we lose, the love we long for and the mistakes that shape our lives. Victoria has written a recognisable generation novel about nostalgia for the golden days, for the places, the people and the stories that are gone for good.

  • Cover Dead Water
    Cover Dead Water
    Dead Water
    Subtle, sometimes poetic and never sensationalist
    Jury Knack Hercule Poirot Prize

    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.

  • Cover The Reflections
    Cover The Reflections
    The Reflections
    A writer at the peak of his ability
    Cobra

    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.

  • Cover - The Butterfly Effect
    Cover - The Butterfly Effect
    The Butterfly Effect
    One of the most undervalued Flemish novelists
    Knack

    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.

  • Cover Mona in Three Acts
    330,000 copies sold
    Cover Mona in Three Acts
    330,000 copies sold
    Mona in Three Acts
    Her characters are credibly close to home
    De Standaard

    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.

  • Cover The Belgian Marriage
    Cover The Belgian Marriage
    The Belgian Marriage
    A great sense of style and humour.
    De Reactor

    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.

  • Cover Kaddish for a C*nt
    Cover Kaddish for a C*nt
    Kaddish for a C*nt
    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.

  • Cover Drarrie in the Night
    Cover Drarrie in the Night
    Drarrie in the Night
    Raw, full of humour, doubt and self-mockery
    Tzum

    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…

  • Cover I think
    Cover I think

    ‘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.

  • Cover Monte Carlo
    Cover Monte Carlo
    Monte Carlo
    A jewel that glitters like a freshly cut diamond
    Knack

    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.

  • Cover The Woman Who Fed the Dogs
    Cover The Woman Who Fed the Dogs
    The Woman Who Fed the Dogs
    As clear as crystal and very impressive
    Knack

    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.

  • Cover European Birds
    Cover European Birds
    European Birds
    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.

  • Cover The Goose and His Brother
    Cover The Goose and His Brother
    The Goose and His Brother
    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.

  • Cover War and Turpentine
    NY Times Favourite
    Cover War and Turpentine
    NY Times Favourite
    War and Turpentine
    One of the 10 best books of 2016
    The New York Times

    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.

  • Cover His Name Is David
    Cover His Name Is David
    His Name Is David
    A book to be unashamedly excited about
    NRC Handelsblad

    Flanders, 1914. David, a young Belgian schoolteacher, stands before the firing squad, sentenced to death for desertion. Days earlier, he was teaching his fellow soldiers in the trenches to read and write. But when he befriended a sensitive young pupil, Marcus Verschoppen, disaster followed.

  • Cover Charlotte Brontë's Secret Love
    Cover Charlotte Brontë's Secret Love
    Charlotte Brontë's Secret Love
    A captivating encounter with the remarkable Brontës
    Lancashire Evening Post

    In 1842 Charlotte Brontë goes to Brussels with her younger sister Emily to learn and teach, in the hope of starting her own private school. What exactly happened in Charlotte’s time in Brussels has never become completely clear... ‘Charlotte Brontë’s Secret Love’ is a Victorian flavoured book, with an omniscient narrator, which exudes a nineteenth-century, Brontë-esque atmosphere.

  • Cover Woesten
    Cover Woesten
    Woesten
    Enchantingly beautiful
    De Wereld Draait Door

    ‘Woesten’ recounts a suffocating story full of village gossip about a family in which fate strikes with a heavy hand, leaving no-one unscathed. It portrays a realistic, almost naturalistic image of a typical rural village in the early 20th century and offers a nuanced view of the psychology of intriguing characters.

  • Cover we and me
    Cover we and me
    We and Me
    A bitterly angry and amusing novel. De Coster places her protagonists on the operating table and dissects them cold-bloodedly.
    Spiegel Online

    The reader lands in the midst of an upper-class world teeming with dramas large and small, where love, truth and ambition are regularly at odds. ‘We and Me’ is a brilliant, astute family novel, full of intriguing characters sketched with great psychological insight and compassion. The book takes the measure of the modern European, and demonstrates the strength of family ties.

  • Cover The Man I Became
    Cover The Man I Became
    The Man I Became
    While it entertains us with the strangeness of anthropomorphism, it is profoundly engaged with the strangeness of being human
    The Times Literary Supplement

    ‘The Man I Became’ is an account written by an ape. Along with masses of fellow apes, he is plucked from a state of nature and, after a tough sea journey to the New World, subjected to a rigorous programme of civilization.

  • Cover The Detours
    Cover The Detours
    The Detours
    Theunissen has discovered his inner Homer for this modern Odyssey.
    De Standaard

    ‘The Detours’ is a lavishly painted saga of a post-war family in which too much has remained unsaid. Theunissen presents unforgettable characters in search of a good life, of themselves and of a way to feel connected.

  • Cover Someone's Sweetheart
    Cover Someone's Sweetheart
    Someone's Sweetheart
    Beautiful adaptation of Stravinsky’s 'The Soldier’s Tale'
    De Morgen

    ‘Someone’s Sweetheart’ is a fairytale in verse form, about a Russian soldier who is given two weeks annual leave from the battlefield in World War I. In the penetrating, moving text, Moeyaert continually plays with foreboding omens. The sinister atmosphere is enhanced by Korneel Detailleur’s impressive grey illustrations.

  • Fortunate Slaves
    Enthralling, amusing and intriguing *****
    De Volkskrant

    Two Belgian exiles, both called Tony Hanssen, are seeking themselves in a world that has become too big and too chaotic for everyone. One Tony is a loser with no illusions, the other Tony a high-spirited nerd. Both are hoping for salvation. ‘Fortunate Slaves’ is a pitch-black tragicomedy with unforgettable characters and dialogues, an ingenious plot and a virtuoso style.

  • Cover The City and Time
    Cover The City and Time
    The City and Time
    Robijn fits his touching miniatures into a larger, meaningful story without his characters becoming puppets.
    De Standaard

    'The City and Time' consists of nine stories in chronological order, all of which take place in Brussels. Robijn’s characters all have difficulty getting by in life, but succeed by throwing themselves blindly into their regular activities. Until something – often love – turns up and turns everything upside down.

  • Cover The Latecomer
    90,000 copies sold
    Cover The Latecomer
    90,000 copies sold
    The Latecomer
    Will often have you in fits of laughter, only to grab you the next moment unexpectedly by the throat
    De Standaard

    A retired librarian wants to escape the dreary monotony his bossy wife has imposed on him. There is only one, extraordinary way in which he can regain the self-esteem that his marriage has dented. He plans to gradually feign dementia until he finds himself in a rest home, freed from all social and familial pressure.

  • Cover Many Heavens Beyond the Seventh
    Cover Many Heavens Beyond the Seventh
    Many Heavens Beyond the Seventh