Flanders Literature helps publishers and festival organisers find that one particular title or author that is the perfect fit for their list or audience. So take a good look around, we present a selection of the finest literature from Flanders. If you like what you see, please get in touch with us for further information.
In ‘Minuet’, a man works eight hours a day in the deep-freeze basement of a factory. In that polar world he is accompanied only by his own fears and thoughts, and for hours on end he has conversations with himself. The neurotic protagonist poses critical questions about religion, monarchy and the State.
One of the few truly magnificent novels in Dutch language-literature. A masterpiece.
De Volkskrant
This novel tells the story of Ondine, who was born in a poverty-stricken house in Chapel Road at the turn of the twentieth century. The Times Literary Supplement wrote: 'Since its original appearance in 1953, this novel by the candidate for the Nobel Prize has been controversial as only works in advance of their time can be; and even now that experimental writing is commonplace, it has lost none of its freshness and vitality.'
This splendid, painful, sparkling book is worth reading and rereading
De Standaard
‘My Little War’ is based on Boon's own war experiences during World War II. It is a collection of thirty loosely interrelated chapters, each containing a story that can be read independently. ‘My Little War’ is to Flemish literature what ‘Voyage au bout de la nuit’ by Louis-Ferdinand Céline is to French literature: a slap in the face to bourgeois literature, a radical experiment that thoroughly shook up the traditional novel.
A finely tempered piece, with an intuitive sympathy for strange modes of feeling
The Times
‘Will-O’-The-Wisp’, the last of Elsschot's novellas, tells the story of the nocturnal search by the rather washed-up Frans Laarmans and three Afghan sailors for the mysterious Maria van Dam. The simple plot of a fruitless search in an urban setting contains undertones of a wider parable of the quest, thus making a concentrated summary of the themes that run through all Elsschot’s novels.
Elsschot possesses the rare knack of making a reader laugh, squirm and sob, all at the same time
The New York Times
The novellas ‘Soft Soap’ (1924) and ‘The Leg’ (1938) are two highlights from Elsschot’s fiction, linked by a common narrative and featuring the recurring tragicomic Keatonesque character of Frans Laarmans who also appears in Will-o’-the-Wisp (1946).
One can speak of Elsschot’s oeuvre as great European literature
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Since its publication in English, ‘Cheese’ has conquered the world with translations in more than 30 languages. The novella deals with an episode in the life of Frans Laarmans, a clerk who is suddenly made chief representative of a Dutch cheese company. ‘Cheese’ is a satire of the business world and the perfect vehicle for Elsschot’s dry humorous style. In a brilliant evocation of the thirties, it depicts a world full of smart operators and failed businessmen.
One can speak of Elsschot’s oeuvre as great European literature
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Set in a down-market Paris boarding house before World War I, this novel is a masterpiece of ironic black humour. The Villa’s owner, the energetic Madame Brulot, is childless and lavishes more affection on her pet monkey, Chico, than on her husband, an embittered ex-solicitor.
