Nonfiction selection spring 2025

If there is one defining characteristic of nonfiction from Flanders, it’s the author’s obsession with telling a remarkable story. This is reflected in the five titles of our spring selection.

Whether it’s about discovering whether the Tasmanian tiger is truly extinct, unveiling the closed community of the Roma, exploring the connection between techniques of the old masters and modern social media, navigating an overload of unreliable information, or examining the complex relationship between a mother and daughter: these five nonfiction titles all transform personal perspectives or experiences into universal narratives.

In November 2024, acclaimed novelist Lize Spit, author of The Melting, I’m Not Here and The Rightful Finder, made her nonfiction debut with ‘Autobiography of My Body’, a book that quickly soared to the top of the bestseller lists. In this deeply personal work, Spit reflects on her difficult relationship with her mother, how it shaped her experience of her own body, and how she managed to come to terms with these feelings. 

Everybody has an opinion about Roma, but few people really know them. Their history is very complex, powerful and tragic; their diversity is so vast that no single flag can encompass it. One cannot speak of ‘the Roma’ as a single entity, there is not one Roma community. There are many, and they differ greatly from one another. 

In ‘Instagrammable – What Art Tells Us About Social Media’, Koenraad Jonckheere delves into the surprising similarities between 2,500 years of European art history and our modern image culture on social media. He reveals how centuries-old ideas about observation, registration and imagination continue to influence how we deal with digital images even today.

In the midst of this information overload we all face, we need to develop a new mindset –one that requires a critical perspective. We must continuously train to ignore the information that doesn’t deserve our attention. Ignaas Devisch explores how cultivating well-balanced ignorance can help us reclaim a truly well-informed position in the world. It’s high time to stop informing ourselves – and democracy – to death.

In her highly anticipated second prose work, award-winning author Charlotte Van den Broeck explores the legacy of the lost Tasmanian tiger. In this compelling book, she traces the extinct animal’s footsteps from zoos and natural history collections in Europe to the depths of the bush in Lutruwita (Tasmania), navigating the intersections of philosophy, science, and fiction.