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.
Saved! is a compelling picture book, full of beautiful details, which invites our imagination to examine the effects of global warming. ****
NRC Handelsblad
Arend is born in a nest on an ice floe. The sun never sets there, which at first Arend finds rather pleasant. But then the ice melts and the nest slides into the cold sea. Arend acknowledges defeat. He takes to the air, spreads his wings and lets the wind carry him along. From the sky, however, Arend can see that the water is rising. Soon all the animals will drown, he thinks. Somebody must do something, but who?
One day, Crocodile decides to leave his pond and to head into the big wide world. That’s when he realises that quite a few of his friends are in trouble. ‘The Kind Crocodile’ is a light-hearted and funny cumulative tale about the unexpected power of teamwork.
In 'The Climate Is Us' these two young activists reach out a hand to each of us: to politicians and policy makers, to parents and grandparents, to their peers. They call for change, because the clock is ticking.
A master of suspense and of the subtle untangling of painful situations *****
De Standaard
Her mother thinks Bianca is a girl that requires special treatment. Her father thinks she is unmanageable. And Bianca herself? She doesn’t say a word. Until one hot afternoon in August, Billie King, her favourite actress, is sitting in the living room, sipping a cup of tea. With Billie King around, Bianca is brave enough to take a decision. Moeyaert creates an oppressive atmosphere, in which smouldering tensions can erupt any moment.
Calm Leon takes Otto on a journey through the world of colour. This Encyclopaedia Otto-colorista is a feast for the eyes: after the restrained grey, black and white, the pages are a riot of colour and detail and there is always something new to discover. An abundance of colour you can’t stop looking at.
A debut that you wish every writer would write: surprising, imaginative and merciless *****
De Standaard
Eva, in her late twenties, travels back to her native village with a big block of ice in her car. She has been invited to a viewing of a new milking parlour at a dairy farm where her childhood friend Pim still lives, an occasion that will also serve to commemorate the death of his older brother, who drowned as a young man. Slowly it becomes clear she returned to her village to take revenge for what happened to her as a child...
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’.
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.
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.
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.
Van Reybrouck manages to convince the reader that drawing lots would be an effective way to breathe new life into our enfeebled democracy.
Henriette Roland-Holst Prize jury
Van Reybrouck argues with crystal clarity that drawing lots would be an effective way to revitalize our enfeebled democracy and ensure that citizens participate once more in the social structures that shape them and their lives.
‘The Making Of’ is a work of art, an absolute gem from start to finish. Evens captures emotions, both large and small, along with funny little human traits and tics. His story feels very familiar, with all of its absurdity. There’s not one single page that will leave you indifferent.
Otto and his dad spot some weird and wonderful sights as they drive through the village into the dazzling heart of the city. In dynamic prints full of detailed pictures, Tom Schamp brings all kinds of animals to life in the most bizarre and remarkable vehicles. This wonderful picture book guarantees to provide hours of viewing pleasure.
A tender story offering a glimmer of hope for all the frightened little outsiders
De Leeswelp
Telemarcus cannot or dares not dive. One day, when all the young pigeons have to take a gruelling diving test to receive their diploma, he anxiously awaits his turn. With his soft-hued illustrations incorporating old photographs, Alain Verster evokes a nostalgic atmosphere. A highly successful and amazingly illustrated book about the fear of failure.
Maia and her grandmother have a ball whenever they are together. But then Grandma suddenly falls ill and when she wakes up she has lost her words. Far from the realms of cliché, Tine Mortier and Kaatje Vermeire show how a sharp young girl copes with difficult themes like ageing and death.
Sublime, monumental, virtuoso. This literary non-fiction is more thrilling than a novel.
NRC Handelsblad
Like many Belgians of his generation, David Van Reybrouck knew Congo from stories of the old days. The author begins his gripping account in the 1870s and chronicles the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras, right up to 2010, the fiftieth anniversary of Congolese Independence.
Upon its publication, ‘The Wrong Place’ set off artistic fireworks in the Flemish graphic novel scene. This comic strip is bursting with artistic ambition: Brecht Evens has introduced a new and daring style with his expressive drawings and powerful choices of colour.
Majestic. A book like this is written once a decade at most.
Dagblad van het Noorden
1943. In rich and vivid language, Els Beerten maps out the hopes, dreams and desires of four friends, deftly capturing the blurring of the boundaries between good and evil, black and white. A moving and subtle portrayal of the darkest pages of our history. All of the characters follow their instincts and act in good faith. But what happens when the course you have chosen turns out to be the wrong one?
The young aristocrat beautifully and convincingly portrayed in this book is Marguerite van Male, a girl of flesh and blood, a wayward, boyish, wild and eccentric child, constantly at odds with her authoritarian father. She cannot be forced to do anything and refuses to be corseted – literally and figuratively – by anyone.
In the middle of the night a million different butterflies fly round the head of Stach, a young elephant. Stach is completely bewildered, but his parents know what he has to do. He must set out in pursuit of the butterflies. On his journey Stach realises that no one sees the butterflies but him.
Alex is a gluttonous little pig. ‘Don’t eat when we’re not eating’, his mother says. Alex is stopped by a monster who eyes him as a tasty morsel, whom he manages to distract with clever tricks. But every monster has a mother, and all mothers are more or less alike. A veritable feast for keen observers.
In a forgotten village somewhere in Flanders, a boy lives with his father and three uncles in his grandmother’s house. They’re an ill-mannered and coarse bunch, unpredictable heavy drinkers. Wallowing at the bottom of the social ladder, their lives are a total mess.
All the problems of post-colonial Africa seem to rage there in exaggerated form. Ten years after her highly praised 'Back to the Congo', Lieve Joris was brave enough to return during a particularly precarious moment in Congolese history.
A rabbit family that you instantly adopt as your own
De Leeswelp
Ricky Rabbit is different from the other rabbits: his right ear droops, while his left ear stands straight up. Whatever he does, the other rabbits make fun of him. In the end, his humour earns him a place in the group as the entertainer.
‘The Rose and the Swine’ was inspired by ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and is a tribute to the primal force of the fairy tale. Provoost, a celebrated author for all ages, offers her readers works of the highest literary quality.
There cannot be many writers as tough and sensitive as Bart Moeyaert.
NRC Handelsblad
A master of creating an oppressive atmosphere, Moeyaert succeeds in making his readers sense everything. There’s no air, there’s no escape, just an inevitable chain of events. In haunting and poetic prose, Bart Moeyaert displays his razor-sharp observation of the human psyche and the dangers of prejudice.
'Falling' exhibits the traits of a classic tale of destiny.
Woutertje Pieterse Prize jury
Lucas is spending the summer with his mother in his grandfather’s house as he does every year. This year, however, everything is different: his grandfather died at Christmas and gradually tongues are beginning to wag about his war years. In a sober style and with atmospheric, detailed descriptions and convincing dialogue, Anne Provoost creates an extraordinarily oppressive feel to her novel.
Geert De Kockere’s poetic language and Lieve Baeten’s gorgeous illustrations lift this book above the average, as does its content: together with Elly Dark Blue, readers learn that there is more beyond a monochromatic world.
Claus reveals his mastery by producing a sentimental story about a total failure
De Morgen
In ‘A Tender Destruction’ Claus uses a number of tried and trusted themes. However, he tells the tale of this tragic love affair masterfully, without ever becoming depressing.
One of the landmark European novels of the post-war era
J.M. Coetzee
This Bildungsroman is also a social document about political and social misfortune in Flanders before, during, and after World War II. The novel has continued to be a bestseller for many years and has been translated into numerous languages.
Geeraerts’ sentences twist and twine across the pages
NRC Handelsblad
'Black Venus’ is one of the most talked-about novels from post-war Flanders. To this day, the controversy surrounding the publication remains intense. Originally lauded as brilliant, today the book is mainly decried for extolling racism, colonial despotism and misogyny.
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.'
The most beautiful ode to rural life ever written in the Dutch language
De Standaard
Farmer Wortel recounts the story of his life: his connection to the soil which he works, his relationship with God (and pastor), and his natural acceptance of his and his family’s fate. The story, written in the first person, echoes with this simple man’s love for life.
‘Novellas that attempt to make a fool of people,’ is how Paul van Ostaijen once described his grotesques. In these astonishing texts full of absurd blow-ups, he lashed out against the wrongs of his time, mercilessly unsettling all logic.
