Fiction selection spring 2026

This spring, Flanders Literature presents seven new works of fiction that together offer a wide perspective on contemporary storytelling from Flanders. If you’re looking for your next historical read, the story of a woman navigating the constraints of late‑nineteenth‑century society may be the one for you. The selection also includes a cinematic portrayal of a former soldier returning to the scarred landscapes of post‑war Flanders. Readers drawn to reflective or introspective fiction will find a novel about a scholar confronting the slow erosion of language, alongside the story of an activist seeking temporary refuge from a world in crisis. Other titles explore the strains of early motherhood and the resurfacing of long‑buried truths during an intense therapeutic encounter. Finally, an epic narrative follows a young man pulled into an unsettling ideological undercurrent. Each novel opens a door to a vivid and unique world, inviting you to read on.

In the late nineteenth century, Amandine and her twin brother Ambrose grow up in a wealthy Antwerp banking family. When Amandine reaches adulthood, she is given in marriage to an ambitious banker who makes his fortune in the colonial rubber industry. She seeks her freedom in an affair and in the supernatural. This is the account of a woman who refuses to look away, and of an era that is at once dazzling and devastating.

Young Henry Bennett, a former British soldier, returns to Flanders in 1919, only months after the Armistice. Henry is overwhelmed by memories of battles, comradeship and above all the loss of friends such as Archie, with whom he had a close bond. With empathy, sensory power and an almost cinematic style, Aline Sax weaves together past and present to create an intense psychological portrait.

After completing doctoral research into meteorological phenomena in the modern novel, M is working on the digitisation of a literary archive. When aphasia starts to affect her memory and speech, her words disappear one by one, and with them her sense of self. ‘Whiteout’ is a moving novel about the boundaries of language and memory, and about the complex bond between parents and children. With discerning observations and stylistic precision, Six makes the melancholy of leave-taking tangible.

‘The Dropout’ follows a woman who, after years of activism, leaves her life in Belgium behind and withdraws to a remote valley in Normandy. In a simple house, she tries to relearn how to look: at the cows languidly grazing, birds skimming past, the rhythm of the seasons. But when the valley is hit by a devastating flood, her fragile new life is swept away overnight. For Peeters this is a way to ask a probing question: can you really flee a world in crisis?

A young woman looks back on a turbulent period shaped by a strained relationship, the demands of new motherhood and the pressures of a judgmental environment. As unspoken expectations lead to conflict, Aline finds little solace in feminist literature or therapy. Her simmering anger spills over into the world around her. With razor sharp prose and sly irony, Debruyne’s Aline exposes the cracks in so called progressive ideals.

After years of silence, 75-year-old Kristien at last decides to share her story. During one long and intense therapy session, Kristien tells her therapist, Sophie, how her life was thrown off course after a new neighbour, Tove, moved in across the street. ‘The Last Session’ takes an unexpected turn when Kristien’s revelations touch on Sophie’s own traumatic childhood, and their lives begin to intertwine.

After his parents disappear, Jeremy grows up in Ptitami, the hook up hotel run by his grandparents. The hotel proves a cover for the ‘red cow gang’, a shadowy organisation uniting the radical left and right. Their activities attract private detective Diane, who believes Jeremy may be the key to unmasking a dangerous underground network. ‘The Red Cow’ is a mythical narrative on parenthood, extremism and decadence.