Spit knows how to squeeze your throat again. A book without compromises.
NRC Handelsblad
In this deeply personal work, Spit reflects on her difficult relationship with her mother, who is terminally ill. Spit’s mother had long struggled with alcohol and found communication very difficult, often expressing a desire to disappear. Growing up this way, Spit internalized some of these patterns, resulting in a complex relationship with her own body. ‘Autobiography of My Body’ is a deeply moving, confrontational, yet ultimately loving exploration of a daughter’s attempt to understand both her mother and herself.
Julie is a 37-year-old performance artist with a broken relationship to deal with when her father offers her a sum of money. He advises her to have her eggs frozen and to invest in real estate. Julie is not planning simply to accept that role, however. In a radically honest and vulnerable quest, her attempt to liberate herself results in a collective family breakdown.
‘Handsome Jo’ is a nuanced novel about how to be yourself. It is not a ‘heavy’ novel, but you’ll find humour and levity everywhere in it.
Bazarow
Jo Stormvogel is a striking figure. He grows up in a large Catholic family in postwar Flanders. As a young man he attracts the attention of a monk, who abuses the boy’s trust with sexually transgressive behaviour. As an adult, Jo exlores his sexuality, throws himself into the vibrant nightlife of the 1970s and meets Felix, with whom he will share his life. With his powerful allure, the impulsive protagonist seems born lucky, but ultimately he proves no match for the adversity inflicted on him by time.
A racy novel with a tight narrative arc, rhythmical language and witty observations.
Humo
As the wife of the successful author Georg Sanctorum, Sandra places her life entirely at his service. She is his manager, agent, editor and muse. One morning she finds a letter in which Georg puts an end to their twelve-year relationship. Sandra breaks down and decides to change her life radically. With iron discipline, she will force herself into debauchery. From now on she’ll smoke and drink every day, jump into bed with strangers and be lazy.
The author approaches everything that is human with a loving, interested, serene objectivity. –
Gazet Van Antwerpen
In sixteen short stories, Roger Van de Velde shines a kaleidoscopic light on a time spent in prison, where, as a journalist he ended up after forging prescriptions for Palfium, a painkiller to which he was addicted. With a sense of the grotesque, he manages to describe his fellow inmates and comical situations that reveal all the many layers of a character.
Not a chapter goes by without Terrin opening the door to a philosophical issue. *****
Het Nieuwsblad
Professional photographer Simon travels to Italy with his daughter Romy to scatter the ashes of his deceased ex-wife Carla in the sea. That same day a mysterious sum of money is paid into his bank account. The money serves as compensation for the fact that he cannot return to his former life. He goes in search of a way out.
An exhilarating, emotional novel whose relatable characters and exciting plot draw you in right from the start *****
London Literary Scouting
Sixty-year-old cardiologist Charles Dumont is on the point of boarding a flight to Naples. He has an appointment there with his past. Thirty years ago his first wife, Sylviane, mother of his daughter Claudia, disappeared without trace. In a rich and expressive style reminiscent of Italian cinema, Dangre focuses on a stormy relationship and examines the destructive (or liberating?) urge to break away from your own life.
‘Wolf’ is a book you’ll want to read at one sitting.
De Volkskrant
Wolf travels as far north as his bank balance will allow, without telling anyone where he is. Wolf wanted to be a writer; his sister Lara became one. In the autobiographical ‘Wolf’ she looks back, ten years later, on their childhood in a family with five children, on the turbulent months after Wolf’s disappearance and the even more turbulent years after his death. A rock-solid book about grief and profound sorrow.
Penetrating voyage to discover maternal intuition, a lost natural instinct and a sense of home. ****
Humo
A pregnant writer decides to make one final trip before the baby arrives. She drives along the Danube in a campervan with her boyfriend Leon, from its source in Germany to its mouth in Romania. Reflecting the way the author is subject to transitions, the book switches between reporting and lyricism, between mythology and cultural history, between the diaries of a mother, author and traveller. Van Offel allows us to share in her quest, which, because of the echoes of centuries-old fairy tales and stories, is universal as well as intensely personal.
Silence, as Marieke De Maré shows in her second novel, can say more than a thousand words. *****
Knack Focus
Simone and Andrej have lived for many years in a house on the edge of a sparsely populated village, looking out on their sheep barn. In ‘I’m Going to the Sheep’ we look at the couple’s small world over a period of two weeks. Shimmering through the daily routine the reader can detect fairy tales, magic realism and a touch of absurdist humour. De Maré succeeds in touching a sensitive chord with her poetic parable about life, parenthood and love.
Refined, layered, bloodcurdling, a book about sensuality and desire on the one hand and purity on the other. ****
Bazarow
Marieke and Vik have been a couple since they were fourteen and are devoted parents to their twin daughters Hasse and Lotte, who were the result of IVF treatment. Years later, Marieke mourns the loss of sexuality. The combination of her sexual frustrations and her exploratory, practical nature prompts Marieke to undertake research into male sex workers. In ‘Gentlemen’ Patricia Jozef frankly investigates female desire and sexual morality. What happens when we reverse traditional roles and expectations?
A bittersweet story that has a serious undertone, yet whose development is nevertheless full of humour
Het nieuwsblad
On the day of his first communion, Ernest loses his family. He renounces his early faith and is intent on revenge. When Brother Rémy asks him to continue the beatification of Sister Merita, Ernest sees in the task a chance to personally settle accounts with God. In Rome he is helped by scammers Livio and Stefania. But then the case miraculously takes off and the process of canonization gets completely out of hand.‘Santa Subito’ is a compelling tragicomic story with ingenious plot twists, colourful characters and laconic irony.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An exciting whodunnit and a wonderful piece of biofiction
Tzum
This engrossing historical novel on Charlotte of Belgium opens up remarkable worlds: that of the royal house and the nobility, that of a powerfully evocative Mexico, and that of the human spirit, which after loneliness and longing flirts with madness. Dieltiens shows us a fascinating woman, who flounders and obstinately tries to keep her head above water. In this fictional biography, the daughter of King Leopold I has her honour restored, in sparkling prose.
One of the best Flemish crime novels for a long time
De Standaard
Keller Brik is a classic detective in every sense: pig-headed, cynical and distrustful, yet cursed with an immense sense of responsibility and the conviction that the bad guys must never win. In 'Brussels Blues' we follow him investigating a family tragedy, searching for a vanished transmigrant and collaborating with the biggest mob in the Brussels underworld. In the dark underbelly of the city lies the key to all mysteries.
Anne-Laure Van Neer continues to produce writing of a consistently high quality.
Knack
In an assisted living complex, a select company regularly meets in the utmost secrecy: the Thanatos Club. The elderly members have just one wish: to determine how they end their lives and to die with dignity. The members tend to an illicit poison garden that produces the necessary ingredients. But when the greedy director of the complex announces new building plans, the future of the poison garden is suddenly uncertain.
When Chris Yperman published her debut ‘A Very Tiny Ship’, the book quickly acquired a cult status. In the novella, protagonist and narrator Christina describes and documents her turbulent love life and her interaction with a group of friends and lovers.
‘Icons’ offers us a glimpse inside closed mental institutions in Flanders in the 1970s. Patients are inhumanely treated, left to their fate or, even worse, subjected to medical experiments. In a down-to-earth and apparently simple idiom, Vlaminck takes us with him into the head of a corrupt monk.
In an ancient forest, a ranger finds the body of a young woman lying naked on a tree stump, abused and strangled. The scene of the crime conjures up sinister memories of a cold case from several years ago. The investigation focuses on Suxy, an isolated village in the middle of the forest, inhabited mainly by elderly people and by eccentrics who are trying to build new lives. Sara Cavani of Interpol asks her friend Alex Berger, a rather unusual private detective, to help investigate the gruesome murders.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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' 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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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 institutions. Empathy, combined with a powerful talent for observation, an eye for detail and literary flair, produces compelling portraits of lost souls.
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’.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
At times poignant, at times shocking, but just as often witty enough to make you burst out laughing.
Cutting Edge
Annelies Verbekeinterweaves 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’.
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.
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.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
‘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.
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?
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.
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’.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
'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’?
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.
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.
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.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
Once again, a fantastic thriller that you want to read in one sitting.
Het Nieuwsblad
Gaelle wakes up injured in a psychiatric hospital in Berlin. Her seven-year-old son is in a coma in another hospital, and the police suspect her of attempting to murder him. Gaelle manages to escape and is determined to uncover the truth. Michael is a contract killer. When Michael decides to reject an assignment, he knows he must run for his life. One makes a living by killing, the other would kill to survive. And soon their paths will cross...
‘She Alone’ is a story of a love between Western Europe and Islam, and a confrontation between and a merging of Europe and Islamic values, as well as a dystopic warning for Europe, and its growing fear of everything that is different.
Yuji Kohara is a molecular biologist who is researching the roundworm, C. elegans. One evening he accidentally gets off the metro a stop early. His absentmindedness sets him on the trail of an old flame. What follows is a long night, a restless week and a strange rest of the year.
‘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.
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
Gronda writes clear prose, melancholy, but seasoned with a slight irony that alleviates the weight
Haarlems Dagblad
Three days before a major exhibition of his paintings in Venice Igor Nast receives a call from his half-brother, summoning him to Switzerland to his father's deathbed. A father of whom he cherishes not a single memory.
Skorobogatov carries you off and bewitches you with his lovely language ****
NRC Handelsblad
‘Portrait of an Unknown Girl’ is not only a powerful story of the beauty and tragedy of first love, but also an uncompromising portrait of an inhumane epoch and an oppressive regime that breaks people, punishes innocence and integrity and ruins lives.
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.
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.’
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?
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Olyslaegers performs a high-wire act between monumental and over the top, between cool and affected. And he makes it to the other side, gloriously so.
De Standaard
In ‘Winnings’ Jeroen Olyslaegers asks pertinent questions about social engagement, art, spirituality, love and sex and does so with flair and devilish suspense.
A delightful piece to read and look at, with international allure
De Morgen
Verbeke and Verplancke offer a parody of the sovereign power of the artist in modern society. At a more abstract level, this story, taking place in the limited confines of a ski lift, is about an unsympathetic society that demands the artist to justify him- or herself. The result is a parable you will not easily forget.
Van Gerrewey proves once again that the intangible nature of love is still fuel for literature
De Morgen
A man wakes up in a house belonging to friends who have gone on holiday. Accompanied by their cat, he recalls the previous summer, when a woman was still with him. He decides to write to her to bring her up to date with recent developments.
Is this a letter of complaint from a jilted lover, an exhibitionist confession to the world, or a scrupulous self-examination?
Verhelst creates visual prose and will not readily be surpassed in that respect
De Standaard
The Belgian Doctor Duval moved to a magnificent tropical island years ago. Together with the priest and the Madame from the coffee house, he involves himself in the destiny of Cassandra, the girl who stands constantly at the waterline. Life on the island is abruptly disturbed when several whales and a number of women and girls who are unable to speak are washed ashore.
Peeters excels in the plausible characterisation of entirely unscrupulous people
NRC Handelsblad
‘Tuesday’ starts as the account of an ordinary day in the shambling life of an old man. Wandering around the city, his memories rise to the surface. The major contrast between then and now, between the impassive registration of daily events where moral implications are entirely lacking and the underlying dramatic life experiences make ‘Tuesday’ an impressive novel.
A masterly collection of stories, highly intelligent and hugely comical *****
De Standaard
This ‘novel-in-stories’ displays how people often believe they know more than they actually do. They apply labels or draw premature conclusions and, by doing so, cause others to suffer. In this collection of fifteen stories, Verbeke plays a beautiful game with fiction and reality, with believing and exposing. The characters’ assumptions are depicted so realistically and convincingly that readers find themselves going along with them too.
This is not just a great debut novel, it’s a great book in general
De Standaard
An uncompromising reflection of the zeitgeist. Set against the backdrop of an ecological disaster, Roderik Six deploys his razor-sharp style to deliver a chilling story about the resilience of man and his ruthless urge to survive.
The most versatile and most exciting voice of his generation.
Tom Lanoye
A chronicle about resistance and decay, with events that take place in Brussels, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Los Angeles. This novel comes as close as possible to the core of this era, which even the ultra-rich can no longer control.
Marita de Sterck gives fairy tales back their primal power.
De Morgen
In ‘Beast in Bed’, tales like Rapunzel and Snow White are restored to their former glory, giving them back their emotional and literary force and their fierce energy. A must-read for anyone who loves pure folk tales.
Three perfectly controlled puzzle pieces that will never entirely fit together
De Groene Amsterdammer
‘Post Mortem’ is an intense and ingenious novel about a writer’s inspiration, a father’s love for his daughter and a man’s fear of losing his life after his death.
A complex but extremely clear and compelling novel about the recent history of Rwanda
De Morgen
‘A Thousand Hills’ is a rich book, written with highly imaginative touch, that reveals the beauty and the tragedy of the land of a thousand hills. It steers a course between novel, history, anthropological study, and news report. ‘A Thousand Hills’ is a provocative novel and has the power to fuel discussions that still take place about Rwanda internationally.
A clever thriller: exciting, with a well-rounded plot and very recognisable
NDB Biblion
When union official Martin looks away in terror from three youths who are spraying graffiti on a night train and then attack an elderly gentleman who says something about it, he finds himself in a moral quandary. Nobody notices him, he doesn’t have a mobile phone and the victim doesn’t seem to be in a bad way. Enough reasons for Martin not to call the police.
The work of a highly imaginative mind, full of scintillating, poetic language
Tzum
The feigned cheerfulness of the family, the ambiguity of the characters’ banal behaviour and the gathering storm all suggest something terrible is about to happen. Combined with the suggestive style of the book, this ominous tension keeps the reader spellbound.
Flawless stories like these haven’t appeared in Flanders for a long time.
Knack
‘Barely Body’ is a collection of five classic existentialist tales about people who are alive only in the physical sense. Their dreams are mercilessly eroded by the ravages of time, turning them into pale shadows of who they used to be.
Lamrabet peels off skin after skin of the onion and does so in a magnificently compelling style ****
De Volkskrant
Moncif tells his story hiding under a table in the mortuary waiting for the guard to leave the building. His wife left him because he had distanced himself from Muslim culture and now that his brother has died in a car accident he has descended into deep despair.
An immensely appealing novel, razor sharp in the psychological depiction of three generations of women. Humour and bitterness in the same breath.
Trouw
‘Fire and Air’ is a moving tale of a family forced to live far from its native ground, in a place that will never feel like home. With sensitivity and humour Vlaminck shows the effect the uprooting of a family can have. It is the story of many emigrants all over the world, a highly-colourful portrait of a broken family.
Adam believes it’s his job to keep everything in the Garden of Eden, where he lives with Eve, in good order – to curb nature, that is. Eve is beginning to sigh more and she’s taking less pleasure in life. Keen to do something about it, Adam yields to Eve’s fatigue and stops his maintenance work. From then on, everything is allowed to grow rampant.
Quality entertainment with characters that leave a lasting impression
De Standaard
Alex is a hero in the police force; Penny is an ex-whore and the leader of a group of militant prostitutes who have violently freed themselves from their pimps andanyone else who encroaches on their space. Once they were lovers, now they are perfect enemies in the smallest battlefield ever.
A novel full of warmth and characters that capture the imagination.
De Standaard
‘Night Dancer’ is based on the contrast that exists between tradition and modern life in present-day Nigeria. In this book, the author shows the dilemma that many people in modern Africa face. Her portrayal is effective and is done with subtlety and a keen eye for the complexity of African society.
Heart-breaking – right down to the square centimetre. Left me breathless and moved to tears.
Cutting Edge
A novel that confirms that loving, even at a distance, gives life great quality. Bogaert often works with stilled, intimate scenes, very precisely drawn miniatures full of fine details that attest to an extraordinary gift of observation. His seemingly modest prose shimmers with sensibility and emotion, with melancholy and muted tragedy.
For ‘The Virgin Marino’Petry was inspired by a notorious murder case in Germany in which a man was castrated, killed and eaten by his friend at his own request. His power lies in a combination of extremely precise, carefully considered formulations and astounding stylistic elegance.
In this exploration of a murderer’s motives, Bram Dehouck manages to capture the audience’s attention from beginning to end, culminating in a nail-biting, tragic finale that will resonate with the reader for a long time.
When it comes to style, theme and narrative power, Olyslaegers proves to be a worthy bastard son of the great Hugo Claus. ‘We’ is a gift to Dutch-language literature.
Humo
Fast-paced and perceptive, ‘We’ is a many-layered book written in a natural, poetic language. It is a portrait of a man who is horrified by the pressure exerted by his environment as well as an incisive portrait of both the 1970s and today.
This book is worth three literary Michelin stars. It is a masterpiece.
Liberales
This is a gripping novel about how chance and random pieces of information, transformed into poignant memories and delusions, can have a lasting impact on somebody’s life. Vanderstraeten creates an engaging human drama about a guilt-ridden man and manages to sustain the tension up until the surprising conclusion.
Monique gains a new lust for life in her devotion to protesting against the worldwide depletion of the fish population. This good cause justifies the flight from her own problems. Until she can no longer hide behind cod and tuna. An intelligent, intense and admirable novel full of ambiguous and laconic humour.
The story is about eight boys and girls who view the worlds of school and adulthood as empty. Free and secluded, they dispel tedium with uninhibited sexual games, continually shifting their limits. When one of them dies as a consequence, even this fails to move them.
A revelation. Reading a story like this makes you happy
Corriere della Sera
Robin, young and ambitious, takes a tour of all the capital cities of Europe on behalf of his world-weary employer, looking for new marketing strategies for promotional gifts. In ‘Great European Novel’ – a tongue-in-cheek reference to ‘The Great American Novel’ – Koen Peeters has found the perfect form for a book about Europe and the European idea that lies behind it.
Joseph Pearce asks relevant and nuanced questions about the Jewish identity.
Het Nieuwsblad
Starting with a Jewish man requesting euthanasia in Belgium in 2008, Pearce traces the history of a Jewish family back to Poland at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Each chapter presents timeless conflicts between father and son. Do we stay or go, integrate or retain our own identity, cling to faith or enter the big, wide world? And how do we respond to persecution?
In the early twentieth century, Jean-Baptist Van Hooylandt travels from fair to fair with his collection of living human curiosities. The most astonishing piece in his collection is a ‘derodyme’: female Siamese twins, who unfortunately die in dramatic circumstances in 1912.
‘Pitbull’ is a chilling psychological thriller with a strong streak of horror. With a keen eye for detail, Deflo sketches a razor-sharp portrait of a tormented psychopath’s obsessions. Not suitable for sensitive readers.
Its wording is exceptionally meticulous and subtle. A work of art
Knack
In a fragmentary way Stefan Hertmans explores and evokes the consciousness of Jelina, a forty-year old author. Promises for the future have failed to deliver, any hope of finding happiness has shrunk. Will she choose her family in the end?
Marc Reugebrink has written a beautiful and important book.
De Groene Amsterdammer
This book covers the aftermath of ’68, coupling the sexual revolution to its political counterpart. A serious yet entertaining rendering of recent history, evoked with great precision.
Beautifully articulated and full of unexpected twists and turns
De Telegraaf
‘Greener Grass’ is a collection of stories in which a succession of people step into the limelight, all of whose lives contain substantial hidden realms. With their emotional isolation and longing for affection, the characters arouse sympathy and compassion, even if their self-control ends in a violent outburst.
The novel presents a Moroccan outlook on the differences between Moroccans in Morocco and those who have emigrated; between their own values and Western values; between tradition and the modern ways of thinking that men find so hard to deal with.
Lamrabet creates above all a subtle and convincing portrait of a fascinating woman, who, standing firmly by her decisions, must pay the social and intellectual price.
With this extraordinarily successful book, Terrin confirms what gradually should become official: he and no one else is the most intriguing author of his generation.
De Tijd
‘The Bee Eaters’ combines a refined style with a great deal of depth of content, eeriness with the identifiable, the everyday with what is concealed behind the facade. Terrin is not only inspired by the work of Camus but also by, for example, Franz Kafka and Willem Frederik Hermans.
Flair, intelligence, and humour are abundantly present in his book.
Het Parool
Gram is a devotee of cool intelligence who likes to regard people as machines rather than as creatures with a unique personality and psychology. However, he cannot function as a machine himself. But then he becomes a prey to the thing he had always repudiated: emotions.
Two sisters, Hannah and Kim, were left by their mother under dramatic circumstances twelve years ago. Confronted with both professional and romantic issues, the two sisters decide to rethink their lives and leave for Australia. There they start on a suicidally inspired journey, in the course of which they are able to locate their mother, who is living with a group of Aboriginal women.
Often preposterous, sometimes poignant and, above all, consistently charming
The Independent
Many years ago, Madame Verona and her husband, both musicians, moved to a house on a hill outside the village of Oucwègne. Verhulst portrays this worn-out village with an extraordinary sensitivity to simplicity and authenticity. The exceptional care he devotes to style, as a master of the craft, shows some very appealing geniality and intimism.
In this reworking of a medieval story, the magnificent illustrations by Klaas Verplancke bring Reynard vividly to life. Each iconographic image is a genuine masterpiece, full of quirky details that the reader can explore for hours on end.
This is a story about how tragic loss can totally consume a human being. Chika Unigwe’s spare and accessible telling has created a truly poignant narrative.
Ike Oguine
She explores the relationship between migration and loneliness, both of which are becoming more entrenched in modern European society. ‘The Phoenix’ is Unigwe’s debut novel: the story of a strong woman who, hit by loss, homesickness and illness, tries to keep going.
In this tour de force, Koubaa brings the Western tradition of rationality and Eastern nature poetry into harmony with each other.
Knack
Bart Koubaa brings the life story of an ordinary man into direct connection with historical events and developments. His main character is a man trying to come to terms with his past but also fascinated by the mysteries of the universe.
A story that reads like a poetically written prophecy of doom
Het Parool
‘The Uncountables’ is a novel which brings to life the consequences of the warped relationship between poor and rich countries, in this case a Europe languishing in its wealth, and which brings home the possible consequences of an unstoppable stream of refugees. The novel engages with an all-too-real problem in a strongly allegorical way which confronts the reader with his own existence.
16 incisive observations by a stylistically strong writer who holds his readers’ attention with a great sense of timing and narrative skill
De Tijd
A declaration of love to the Belgian in the street, wonder at his pastimes, an ode to his beautiful, but archaic turns of phrase. And also: a deliberately fragmented narrative about a Belgian childhood, a chronicling of the things that pass.All this Verhulst describes, ponders and pokes fun at in his unique and inimitable style: fluent and smooth, incisive and ironic, as well as over-the-top and hilarious, but never without compassion.
Detached and playful; mischievous, ironic, ambiguous and not seldom hilarious
De Morgen
The main character in ‘Blockmeat’ and his pal Celis attempt to organise a ‘better’ food distribution for the homeless. But thanks to the liberal amounts of wine involved, this inevitably gets completely out of hand.
Full of colour, sounds, clear water, and pure poison
De Standaard
‘The Unexpected Answer’ is a sultry book, full of insatiable passion that explodes in the penultimate chapter ‘The Love Letter’, an amalgam of letter fragments written by the collective of women circling Godfried H., and ultimately a single woman who appears in different guises.
Verhelst writes this story of an inspired passion in highly poetic, but also glowing, compelling and incisive prose, with a strongly physical wealth of images, a super-sensitive and sensual explicitness. This creates a troubled, but fascinating blurring of the boundaries between reality and imagination, as well as reality and memory.
The evocative power of language, together with Pleysier’s masterful arrangement of words and sentences, combine to make this a literary jewel.
De Telegraaf
Pleysier is a master at giving voice to that great and painful silence of the generations. He does this without using any great emphasis, so that the reader feels he is a guest in the house, and, like the narrator, looks forward to being invited to Berchem again next year.
A display of fireworks so sensual you can taste them.
Gouden Uil jury
Perfect order always degenerates into chaos, and revolutions into hell. Peter Verhelst describes a city falling apart and descending into violence. ‘Tonguecat’ is a real literary tour de force, a visionary story about today’s urban society and about revolutions.
More than a tribute to a loved one and a poet: a sincere work by a sensitive and powerful writer
NRC Handelsblad
The author uses De Coninck’s poems as the vehicle to tell his story; with them she is able to describe the biographical background and the intimacy of their shared life, while retaining the balance she seeks. Within this poetic space she makes clear what Herman de Coninck was – and is – to her.
Claes’ ingenuity conceals the fact that he has cast his tale in the form of a thriller - a convincing and exciting thriller
De Volkskrant
‘The Phoenix’ is a historical detective story in the tradition of Umberto Eco’s ‘The Name of the Rose’. It takes place in Florence in 1494, and the leading character is one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance, Count Pico della Mirandola, known as the Phoenix.
Hard, pleasantly crude and more topical than ever. His stories are on fast forward without the brakes on.
De Standaard over 'Web'
Mennes depicts young characters who resort to extreme measures in an attempt to deal with the emptiness of their lives. ‘Toast’ offers a heart-wrenching and impressive portrait of a Lost Generation.
Three Sisters in London will one day form the exquisite prologue to the inevitable Collected Works of Eric de Kuyper.
De Stem
During World War I, Eric de Kuyper’s grandfather’s position with the railways took him and his family to London. The family’s three daughters, who were then in their adolescence, never returned to London. They gave this gleaming period of their lives a special place in the stories they often told on family occasions. De Kuyper, who was born during World War II, has collected these stories in a captivating book.
Stylistically sharp from beginning to end, a tour de force throughout
De Groene Amsterdammer
Eduard Bottelaer is a forty-year-old actor who doesn’t expect much from life any more. That is, until he meets the young artist Helena. When she sets off for New York, leaving Eduard behind, she gives him a special task. Eduard is hopelessly in love and becomes obsessed by the bizarre challenge, which lands him in the most unexpected situations.
'High Key' is a postmodern novel, a collection of text types: monologues, dances and stories. Hoste tries to create a new reality via the imagination and techniques of association. It can be read as an incantation or a magic spell.
In ‘To Blackbird Creek’, Stefan Hertmans narrates the coming of age of a boy in a Flemish village in the 1950s and 60s, in a grotesque, but just as often moving way. His budding sexuality and lively imagination so take possession of him that the world appears dark, terrifying and full of secrets.
More beautiful and more moving prose has not appeared this year. A gem.
Vrij Nederland
Thisbook is narrated by the author as a young boy, who listens to his mother read out letters from her absent sister-in-law, a Catholic nun doing missionary work in far-off China. The novelty is the narration of the story from a child’s perspective – a child who is so close to the ground that he tells people apart by their feet.
Love and what follows is the theme of this collection of ten stories: about the catastrophe ánd the tenderness of sex, about habit, love-hate, memory, selfpity, rollicking revenge.
Complete hopelessness without slipping into pathos or protective irony
Ons Erfdeel
In this collection of stories Berckmans shows the most unsavoury and corrupt side of reality. The unstable characters bear their existential emptiness without illusions, self-deceiving optimism is alien to them. Every sentence of Berckmans is filled with the buzz of rock ‘n roll.
A moving book with a rich and functional recounting of anecdotes
Het Parool
‘White is Always Nice’ is a moving story about origins, mourning and language. It is the extended monologue of an old woman who has just died but cannot stop talking. In a one-sided conversation with her silent son, she keeps up her usual non-stop chatter as her body is laid out and preparations are made for the wake.
Within the space of three days, six people are murdered. All the evidence leads to Angelo Ledda, a ruthless hitman who suffers from progressive memory loss. A well-researched crime novel by the 'Godfather of the Flemish thriller'.
In ‘Writing Prague’ Daniël Robberechts tries to create a written portrait of this turbulent city during the end of the 1960s and the decade that followed it. As it goes on, the web becomes increasingly tangled, and ‘Writing Prague’ turns into a book about writing a book, begging the question: is ‘writing’ Prague even possible anymore?
Great because of its simplicity and its instantly gripping truthfulness
Gazet van Antwerpen
A monumental book and true Flemish classic. It is a spectacular expression of Boon’s compassion for the committed individual who, despite all adversity, wants to keep on believing in socialist ideals.
With frightening precision, 'The Year of Cancer' sums up just how ugly love can be
De Morgen
Pierre, a suave young man from the insurance and banking world falls for Toni, a simple and somewhat unstable beautician working in show business. The couple gradually drift apart, until the inevitable break-up follows. Pierre continues to read Toni’s horoscope, Cancer. A couple of years later, he is called to her sickbed.
'Arriving In Avignon’ is its own strange and gorgeously sprightly thing. Here’s hoping that as many readers as possible will discover it.
Rain Taxi Review of Books
What at first resembles a cross between a memoir and a guidebook in time proves to be the story of a young man's dogged yet futile quest to know his own mind – unless it is the ancient city of Avignon itself that is our real protagonist: a mystery that can be approached, but never wholly solved. The narrative unfolds in a stream of consciousness, drawing the reader into the protagonist’s quest for experience.
A work of lasting value for any conscious human being
Algemeen Dagblad
Basile Jonas, a sensitive and vulnerable teacher, is crushed and devoured by the totalitarian and materialistic society he lives in. Everything in this society is geared towards Utility and Profit, leaving no space for softer values such as poetry, music and friendship.
A fast-paced and nuanced story, a strong indictment of the exploitation of the child
NBD Biblion
A young girl from a working-class family gets up early for her first day at the brickworks. This first day at work means both the end of her childhood years and her ‘initiation’ into adult life. She makes her first acquaintance with the gruelling work, the brutality of the workers and the tyranny of Krevelt, the dreaded boss. She can see only one way out: the young love that blossoms between her and an apprentice. But will that be enough of an anchor to keep her from drifting into the danger that fate is mercilessly pushing her towards?
‘The Battle with the Angel’ tells of the life of a community, spread over several generations, but primarily between the world wars. The work bears witness to an unbridled creative force masterfully endeavouring to portray the contrast between primeval nature and decadence. Teirlinck never moralises or lectures, but is majestic and full of compassion for his characters.
‘Lament for Agnes’ is essentially an autobiographical novel. The character of Agnes is in many respects that of Gijsen’s own fiancé who died of TB, while the narrator has much in common with the authors as a young man. ‘Lament for Agnes’ is a novel that is once deeply personal and a fully independent work of art.
A literary all-rounder who explores all facets of life
De Volkskrant
‘Pitfalls’ is a varied collection of letters, verse and short stories. The excerpts from the letters – which were never intended to be made public – caused a furore at the time. The title refers to the obstacles between Minne and the process of writing, between the author and publication – in other words, to the aforementioned struggle. As Minne put it: ‘Caution, enter at your peril!’
