Flanders Literature helps publishers and festival organisers find that one particular title or author that is the perfect fit for their list or audience. So take a good look around, we present a selection of the finest literature from Flanders. If you like what you see, please get in touch with us for further information.
A masterpiece of atmosphere and empathy, a must-have book of the year
Focus Vif
‘Mikel’ tells a true story, based on the experiences of the author, Mark Bellido, who spent four years protecting Basque politicians against ETA. With her brilliant use of colour, Judith Vanistendael depicts the light of a wild and rainy Basque Country.
Gijsemans can shout if he wants to, but he's more than happy to whisper.
The Herland Scotland
Gijsemans’ drawings, washed out but somehow lush, too, are tender and telling, from the doleful curve of Hubert’s back to the workaday treads of the stairs in his apartment building. In this gentle account, Hubert is neither noble aesthete nor creepy loner, simply a man who likes pottering around looking at art.
This absurd picture book is a successful introduction to the richly nuanced oeuvre of René Magritte, which at the same time invites one to explore further. Verplancke shows himself a born surrealist.
When a little girl sees a jet-black puppy in her bedroom window in this wordless picture book, it marks the beginning of an exceptional night. The clown on the bedroom wall also comes to life and transports the little girl to the circus. In ‘Circus Night’, De Leeuw plays with reality, imagination, dreams and fantasy.
‘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.
We seldom see so much humour, beauty and linguistic creativity.
Cutting Edge
In this colourful encyclopaedia, children discover the world and learn new words in a playful way. The result is a hefty introductory and comprehensive work, full of dynamic characters and objects, offering a generous sampling of Tom Schamp’s craftsmanship. His illustrations represent a blend of Richard Scarry’s ‘Busy, Busy Town’ and Martin Handford’s ‘Where’s Waldo’.
‘Mammoth' is the story of Theodore Bob Princel the First. Theo’s parents are rich and successful, and they want nothing less for their son. He and Nanny Leg-Hair race through lesson after lesson after lesson. Until Nanny takes a nap, leaving Theo to set off on an adventure.
Beautiful sentences, funny jokes and original ideas
Jaap Friso
This is not just any counting book: it is cleverly constructed around an increasingly complex list of presents and characters. De Leeuw uses fine, spontaneous lines to draw and paint characters of flesh and blood within stunning settings full of colour and life. It is a collection of sparkling scenes that completely absorb the reader’s attention.
Rosemary thinks fairies are terribly boring. And the worst of it is that she’s a fairy herself. She would rather be a witch.
To celebrate his twentieth anniversary as an illustrator, Carll Cneut has created new illustrations for this popular picture book.
His trademark has become a personal, erudite and stirring form of history writing.
Vrij Nederland
For more than a century, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany shared a neighbour, Neutral Moresnet, a completely forgotten mini-state that is now part of German-speaking Belgium.
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.
The quirky little sisters Kinky and Cosy manage to wreak havoc with all their naivety and innocence. Three small panels – that’s all Nix needs for a daily dose of nonsensical and politically incorrect humour.
Every page reveals an eccentric and original cartooning mind at work.
The Comics Journal
Olivier Schrauwen’s grandfather Arsène leaves for the Belgian colony of Congo in 1947, where he and his cousin Roger have planned a hugely ambitious project: a utopia of modernism, right in the middle of the jungle. Sometimes funny, slightly surreal and often beautiful.
Blond quiff, jutting chin, self-confident grin and completely ignorant of any taboos – that’s him, the one and only Cowboy Henk! With their most popular hero, the illustrator Herr Seele and his writer Kamagurka have created a mixture of Mr Clean, Adonis and a hillbilly, entirely in the tradition of the Belgian Surrealists.
A rich, accessible treasure trove of facts and figures
Financial Times
‘Timeline’ is a trip through time, past dinosaurs, Vikings, Aztecs and spaceships. It is an illustrated journey through our world’s culture and events and travels from the Big Bang to the iPod. Peter Goes constructs a continuous line, on which different historical periods make their appearance one by one.
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.
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.
Supersaturated hues and maximum automotive whimsy make this one to pore over.
Kirkus Review
Gus is a happy do-it-yourselfer. No job is too big or too difficult for him. Luckily, he has plenty of useful stuff lying around and he always comes up with creative solutions. Timmers has thoroughly indulged himself designing the most ingenious vehicles, replete with pedals and handles.
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.
An ambitious young adult novel about the things that divide us: money and religion
Trouw
Babel is an exciting, profound novel, in which Jan De Leeuw again shows that his great strength lies in creating complex, thoroughly credible characters. In this flawlessly constructed story the puzzle is slowly laid out and no one turns out to be what they seem. Apparently effortlessly De Leeuw embeds the human struggle of his characters in a web of religion and superstition, Biblical and jihadi themes.
His argument for a collective authority is inspired and well-founded, but also provocative and utopian.
Humo
Verhaeghe seeks and finds a new interpretation in groups, which lend authority to an individual or an institution, whether they be parents’ associations, groups of active citizens or shareholders’ meetings.
The Hedwige Polder, the most famous stretch of reclaimed land in the Belgian lowlands, is to be flooded again no matter what. It has become symbolic of old farmland forced to make way for new nature reserves.
Aline Sax shows how the damage inflicted by the wall carries on beyond its physical destruction.
MappaLibri
Three generations of Berliners, one wall. In ‘Crossing the Line’, Aline Sax has written an epic tale of life with the Berlin Wall. This tense sketch of a family’s struggle for survival presents daily life in Berlin in a fascinating and convincing light. The threat of the Stasi gradually permeates, and the feeling that no one can be trusted continues to reverberate throughout.
A creative twist that children who like a bit of the shivers will delight in no end
School Library Connection
A five-year-old boy has come along with his father to have a go on his favorite swing near the woods. But while he's been having fun swinging, a huge monster has woken up nearby from a very long nap. Children will be on the edge of their seats listening to this lively picture book, which is full of humour and suspense. This book offers the right amount of thrill, balanced with humour and the warmth of the relationship between the boy and his father.
A blend of incisive, sensory perception and condensed poetic speech’
deReactor
With ‘Antigone in Molenbeek’ Stefan Hertmans has adapted Sophocles’ tragedy to our contemporary, multicultural society. Antigone is now known as Nouria, a brave young law student from the Brussels district of Molenbeek. Just as in the classic, she wants to pay her last respects to her deceased brother – in Hertmans’ version a suicide bomber – and bury his remains. But the authorities decide otherwise.
Four guards are standing in front of a high wall. They are waiting and keeping watch, without knowing why or for how long. Behind the wall is a state secret and everything is suspect, everyone a potential enemy of the state. But everything changes when one of them suddenly disappears and disrupts their unshakable rhythm.
A remarkable piece of theatre – playful, surprisingly and painfully funny as well as moving
The Guardian
1 September 2004. Chechen rebels force their way into a Russian school and hold more than a thousand pupils, teachers and parents hostage inside the gymnasium. Three days later the siege comes to a horrendous conclusion. Two surviving school children try to describe the siege in as much detail as possible to get to grips with the terrible events. But before long, their imagination takes over.
A dark fairy tale filled with troubling implications and haunting illustrations
Publishers Weekly
‘Panther’ is an unsettling graphic novel about a little girl and her imaginary feline companion. Iconoclastic in his cartooning and page layouts, subtle in his plotting, and deft in his capturing of the human experience, Brecht Evens has crafted a tangled, dark masterwork.
Piglet thinks he’s the strongest and even dares to enter into a trial of strength with Elephant. This results in a number of humorously detailed but doomed attempts to lift the ten-ton animal. The combination of dark tones, supplemented by a striking red and bright blue, make for eye-catching pictures.
The design is soft and clear, the jokes are cynical and as hard as nails ****
De Standaard
Sometimes the culprit, sometimes the victim, Dickie always finds himself in awkward and embarrassing situations. The contrast that develops between the stylised drawings and the often coarse jokes creates a balance that is rarely found elsewhere.
‘Beware of Grandma’ tells the story of a remarkable weekend. The star role goes to a quirky grandmother who travels to a hut in the forest with ten children. The story is packed with adventures and outlandish situations, each magnified by one constant: harmony between text and image.
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.
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…
‘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.
Valentina, the emperor’s spoilt daughter, collects birds. When she encounters a talking bird in her dreams, a use for the empty ‘golden cage’ is quickly found. Cneut’s prints exceed all the limits of the illustrative powers of expression: this is art with a capital A.
Brilliant use of the narrative and graphic possibilities of comics
Strapazin
In the trenches, the nameless corpse of a German machine gunner attempts to construct his own history. He tries to get to grips with the insanity of war by tempering the brutal reality with stories.
Monaco, May 1968. Just before the start of the Formula 1 Grand Prix, the entire grandstand is witness to a terrible incident. Within seconds, two people are caught up in an accident that will change their lives forever. ‘Monte Carlo’ reads like a film and leaves readers with a desperate longing.
Jan is nine and he’s perfectly ordinary. He would love to be special, though. Kathleen Vereecken and cartoonist Eva Mouton joined forces to create this story full of humour, in which the illustrations and the text come together to form a happy whole. This book is fresh, funny and heart-warming.
Words fail me. This is a book you will never forget.
Geert Mak
If there was ever a man who rose from the ashes like a phoenix then it was the painter Felix Nussbaum. Mark Schaevers follows Nussbaum on his wanderings through the Nazi years, from Rome to the Italian Riviera, from Paris to Ostend and Brussels.
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.
The book grabs hold of you and does not let you go.
PlaneteBD.com
Maarten Vande Wiele adapts five short stories by Guy de Maupassant. It is no easy task to transform De Maupassant’s dark mood into an extravaganza of colours, and yet Vande Wiele succeeds with aplomb.
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.
Vandenbroucke’s distinctive work blends the highbrow with the low, drawing equally from Gordon Matta-Clark’s site-specific artwork and the Three Stooges’ slapstick timing. With a knowing wink at the reader, Vandenbroucke continuously uncovers something to laugh about in the stuffiness and pretentiousness of the art world.
Not only stunningly beautiful, it is also very interesting. ****
De Morgen
A boy hears a girl calling him one morning. Is it his sister, the sister in the faded photograph on the wall? This is the beginning of an unforgettable adventure. Jef Aerts and Marit Törnqvisthave created a beautiful book about death. It is emotional without being sentimental, stepping smoothly back and forth between magic and the literalness of childhood.
It starts almost imperceptibly, with something innocuous. Tommy is shy, he blushes easily. A little girl notices it, points to him and winks at Paul, the biggest bully of all. Jan de Kinder offers us a powerful story about strong children on the playground who don’t like bullying.
An unusual tribute to the consolations of imagination
The Wall Street Journal
In this moving story about the healing powers of the imagination, Anton Van Hertbruggen and Edward van de Vendel broach major themes such as sadness and loneliness. Dreamy, realistic and fascinating enough to want to look at again and again.
‘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.
