Reading Beyond the Familiar

According to the American Library Association, books featuring LGBTQIA+ characters and experiences, books dealing with race and social justice, and books that discuss sexuality are among the categories most frequently challenged in schools and libraries today.

Contemporary literature from Flanders engages with many of these themes. Across genres and age categories, authors and illustrators explore questions of identity, belonging, inequality, relationships and freedom.

To mark Banned Books Week, we highlight a selection of books from Flanders that engage with themes increasingly being challenged around the world. Literature allows us to encounter experiences beyond our own and invites us to see the world from different perspectives. That is why access to a wide range of stories and voices matters. The theme of Banned Books Week 2026 is particularly apt: ‘Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read.’

Boris is preparing the perfect wedding party for his toys. But when the bride prefers racing cars and Action Man wants to marry Bear instead, his carefully made plans are turned upside down. Rather than presenting diversity as a subject in itself, this picture book treats it as something entirely ordinary. With humour and flair, it encourages children to be themselves and shows that gender roles and personal preferences do not need to fit neatly into boxes.

When seventeen-year-old Jowi falls from a bridge and ends up in a coma, one question haunts his friends and family: was it an accident, an act of despair, or did someone push him? As Jowi hovers between life and death, different voices reconstruct the events of that fateful evening. Evelien De Vlieger depicts Jowi and those around him with crystal clarity. She thereby touches on subjects like relationships and sex in young people, but also transgressive behaviour, social criticism and mental health. 

Bintu, known as Bintje to her Flemish grandfather, is a woman who carries both Belgium and Congo within her. As she navigates childhood, adulthood and motherhood, she is confronted with racism and questions of belonging. In meticulous prose, Tuly Salumu shows what it’s like to grow up as a girl and woman of colour in a white environment. She raises compelling philosophical questions about identity, intergenerational trauma, admiration and parenthood, and succeeds in deeply affecting the reader with this passionate debut.

Seventy-five-year-old Kristien tells her therapist Sophie about her suffocating relationship with her former neighbour Tove, an experience that has left a lasting mark on her life. During their intense session, the women’s stories become increasingly intertwined. Saskia de Coster explores desire, dependency and shame, as well as the ways in which people shape their identities under the gaze of others. Queerness and sexuality are fundamental elements in Kristien’s relationship with Tove, without being presented as a separate theme or explicit message.

After the death of her father, nineteen-year-old Araya leaves Belgium for Thailand to reconnect with her mother and explore a part of her identity she has long struggled to understand. As she builds new friendships and gradually falls for Mariko, questions about belonging, self-image and sexuality come into sharper focus. In deceptively simple black-and-white drawings, Christina De Witte portrays the uncertainty of early adulthood with warmth and nuance. ‘Araya’ is a coming-of-age story about bicultural identity, family relationships and the search for acceptance, both from others and from oneself.

When German troops invade Belgium in 1940, six-year-old Koenraad Tinel experiences the war from within a family that openly embraces Nazi ideology. Through the eyes of a child, ‘Scheisseimer’ follows the family's journey from occupied Belgium to a collapsing Germany, where hunger, fear and displacement gradually replace the initial sense of adventure. At the same time, the graphic novel shows an adult artist looking back on his childhood and struggling to understand his family history and origins. Combining personal memories with a difficult chapter of European history, ‘Scheisseimer’ is a searching and deeply human exploration of war, memory and the lasting impact of the past.

In ‘Women in Dark Times’, philosopher Alicja Gescinska reflects on how people can uphold freedom, tolerance and human dignity when these values come under pressure. Inspired by Hannah Arendt's ‘Men in Dark Times’, she portrays ten women who resisted oppression, dehumanisation and injustice through their ideas and actions. Through the lives of thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil and Rosa Luxemburg, Gescinska explores the importance of pluralism, moral courage and intellectual freedom. She asks how individuals can preserve their humanity in times marked by intolerance and political darkness.

The titles featured here offer just a glimpse of the rich variety of stories being created in Flanders today. Explore our online catalogue to discover many more books and authors, and the diverse perspectives they bring to readers around the world.