Fiction selection spring 2025

Spring brings us longer days, budding greenery, and plenty of new Flemish voices that we love to introduce to you. There’s something here for everyone. Perhaps you like to spend your days in Flanders, immersing yourself in the aesthetic world of an unconventional post-war gay love story, witnessing the prison life of the sixties, joining the quest of a thirtysomething who battles against the social expectations placed on women, reflecting on a difficult relationship with a mother, or processing heartbreak in the garden center of your taciturn Flemish parents. Or perhaps you prefer travelling into the Swedish wilderness with Wolf or embarking on a quantum journey to a parallel life – the one you would have lived if you had made just one different choice.

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.

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.

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.

Jo Stormvogel is a striking figure. He grows up in a large Catholic family in post-war 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.

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.

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.

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. 

In sixteen short stories, Roger Van de Velde shines a kaleidoscopic light on his time 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.