Bookshelf Essentials 2

AUNT JEANNOT’S HATL Eric de Kuyper 1

Essentials 2CONTEMPORARY CLASSICS FROM FLANDERS

Bookshelf

Flemish literature is alive, vibrant, brash...You’re a professional, you know it: titles, like flags, don’t always cover the cargo. You’re now holding a brochure with twenty

‘bookshelf essentials’ and that’s exactly what they are: must-read books! Can’t you feel the letters blistering?

The Flemish Literature Fund is ready with twenty answers to the question Why read and publish classics? In this second part

of ‘Bookshelf Essentials’ we zoom in on contemporary classics, after the classic classics we introduced in part one. This means

that all the writers (m/f) but one, Patricia de Martelaere, the brilliant philosopher and writer who died at an unfortunately

early age, are still alive. No dead letters here!

This booklet is a library for your library. The twenty titles listed, explained and situated here are up there with the

international top. Can the language belt called Flanders in the tiny triangle known as Belgium measure up to the giants of

world literature? You bet! Comparisons with Proust (Eric de Kuyper, Erwin Mortier), Kafka (Annelies Verbeke, Peter Terrin),

W.G. Sebald (Stefan Hertmans) and the American encyclopaedist Richard Powers (Paul Verhaeghen) haven’t been made up.

All the authors and books in this brochure have won prizes and drawn praise, have been read and reread, printed and

reprinted, translated. A number of the award winning titles were immediate bestsellers at home and abroad. To name but

a few: Stefan Brijs (exploring the ethical limits of science and religion), Stefan Hertmans (family and the First World War),

Dimitri Verhulst (growing up in a family of perpetual beer guzzlers).

Have we limited ourselves to the Handsome Young Gods, the early thirty-somethings, the young hounds with fancy

pedigrees? No! Here you get at least three generations price of (n)one.

The elder statesman is Paul de Wispelaere (86) with his magnificent diary-like novel. Eric de Kuyper (aesthete, filmmaker,

writer and chronicler) is a good deal younger but just as amazing. And the same can be said for Walter van den Broeck

(famed for his letter to the king of Belgium).

We take you on a joy ride through turbulent late-eighties Flanders when Herman Brusselmans, Tom Lanoye and Kristien

Hemmerechts launched themselves into the public eye and set off to renew the Flemish literary landscape. And they’re still at

work, years later, just like their children who emerged around the change of the millennium.

Literary daughter Annelies Verbeke (top debut in 2003 with a consistent oeuvre since) and sons David Van Reybrouck (mixes

travel prose with journalism, essays and autobiography in a strong debut) and Yves Petry (astounding stylistic elegance), now

have their own classics.

Ladies and gentlemen book creators, providers and dear readers: Flemish literature is alive, vibrant and brash. Its books will

snap at your heels, bite you in the leg, grab you by the scruff of the neck and warm your heart and your soul.

Get to know these essential, existential, epic works; a brothel of stories full of poetic, moving, disturbing, taboo-breaking

Literature. In short: genuine Contemporary Classics.

These twenty ‘bookshelf essentials’ will snap at your heels, bite you in the leg,

grab you by the scruff of the neck and warm your heart and your soul.

BOOKSHELF ESSENTIALS INTRODUCTION 3

Table of Contents

6 Walter van den Broeck LETTER TO BOUDEWIJN

Letter to BoudewijnWALTER VAN DEN BROECK ‘Letter to Boudewijn’ is framed as a single long letter from a Flemish author –

Walter van den Broeck – to Boudewijn I, King of the Belgians, occasioned by the

150th anniversary of the establishment of the Kingdom of Belgium. The author sets

out to confront the king with the reality kept hidden during previous official visits.

The king is exposed to this hard reality during an incognito visit to the working class

district of Olen, the place in which the author was born. The imaginary tour reveals

the pathetic conditions in which the inhabitants live and describes how they escape

their misery in football, cards, pigeons, the lottery and other dreams.

‘Letter to Boudewijn’ is thus a lesson in social history, a meticulous description of

village life, and an autobiography all in one. It is a book in which the author confronts

himself with his origins, with the shift from material to spiritual poverty, and with

sorrow at the loss of solid ground in a group of people who stick together.

ORIGINAL TITLE Brief aan Boudewijn (1980, De Bezige Bij, 316 pages)PRIZES Henriette Roland Holst Prize, Dirk Martens Prize, Belgian State Prize for ProseTRANSLATIONS French (Editions Labor, 1984)RIGHTS Marijke Nagtegaal, Uta Matten - [email protected], [email protected]

The working class district surrounding the ‘Societé Metallurgique de Hoboken’ factory in Olen, Kempen, Flanders, Belgium, serves as the biotope of the Van den Broeck family and the social environment that moulded the young Walter (1941) into a writer.His classic 1980 novel ‘Letter to Boudewijn’ addresses the former king of Belgium who takes an imaginary tour of the district in the author’s company. Van den Broeck also paid an imaginary return visit to the royal palace in Laken, and his ‘Letter’ inspired him to write his magnum opus, the four part cycle ‘The Siege of Laken’. Novelist, playwright and scriptwriter, Walter van den Broeck is at his best in cycles, in portraying his own and other people’s families, and is a chronicler of Flemish (social) history. In 2015 he published what he referred to as his last novel, ‘The Strange Lady’, about a retired bookseller looking at his own past life and the state of the world.

‘THANK YOU, DEAR WALTER’KURT VAN EEGHEM,

‘We wanted to offer Walter van den

Broeck our sincere gratitude for the

magnificent letter he wrote to us.

Should we write back? Should we invite

him to the palace? Should we prepare

a warm welcome with a

reception? There were

so many possibilities,

but none of them met

with our complete

approval. Suddenly the

answer was clear. We

would pay him a visit.

So we put on a green

Loden coat, took

our place in the ‘open voiture’ our

chauffeur had parked at the entrance

to the palace grounds and minutes

later we were whizzing along the

highways of Belgian heading to meet

the celebrated writer who was waiting

for us at the entrance to his village.

We shall never forget that afternoon.

He showed us around all the places

referred to in his impressive letter.

Time flew and it wasn’t long before

we had a bit of an appetite. But one

location still had to be

visited. Moments later

we were standing eye

to eye in the middle of

the square, the infamous

school playground. The

emotions that took

hold of us were simply

overwhelming. It was

only then that we parted

company. We have returned to that

moment in his wonderful book time

and again, and never without a tear.’

Thank you, dear Walter.

Your monarch Kurt Van Eeghem,

greets you most cordially.

‘The emotions that took hold

of us were simply over-whelming’

Radio broadcaster and actor associated with the role of King Boudewijn

THE ACCURSED FATHERS Monika van Paemel 7

The Accursed Fathers MONIKA VAN PAEMELCentral to ‘The Accursed Fathers’ is the life story of Pamela. Rejected by her mother

who had been hoping for a boy, browbeaten by her father whom she refuses to

hate, the heroine of the story is the eternal victim of a hereditary curse. Through her

central character, Monika van Paemel exposes the subjugation of women. The key

themes of the book are threat and destruction, wars great and small, and oppression

and exploitation by the ‘gentlemen’ who disguise themselves as fathers. Opposed

to all they represent is the powerlessness (or is it unwillingness?) of the daughters,

until their resistance is broken by love.

Monika van Paemel was inspired by the colourful history of her own illustrious

forefathers, which makes the book not only a fascinating family chronicle with

unforgettable characters, but a penetrating recreation of both rural and city life in

twentieth century Flanders. Published in 1985, well after the feminist wave had

passed its peak, the novel is nourished by the unforgettable passion of womanhood,

evoking its universal mystery with the power of an incantation.

ORIGINAL TITLE De vermaledijde vaders (1985, Meulenhoff (republished by Querido), 417 pages)PRIZES State Prize for Prose, Prize of the Flemish ProvincesTRANSLATIONS French (Actes Sud, 1990), German (Klett-Cotta, 1993), Swedish (Forum, 1989)RIGHTS Patricia de Groot - [email protected]

‘A WRITER OF EUROPEAN STATURE’PROF. HUGO BOUSSET, editor in chief of the journal DW B

‘Monika van Paemel’s ‘The Accursed

Fathers’ is her magnum opus,

incorporating her first three novels. The

book can serve as an example of a layered,

multi-vocal prose text that

explores the boundaries

between documentary

autobiography and

fiction, while playing

with blocks of text like

a do-it-yourself textual

mosaic.

The life of the main

character Pam(ela) is related to her

own existence. But the novel is about

‘fathers’ in the plural. Gentlemen rule

the world ‘filled with hate towards

anything that lives and loves’. They

destroy the environment and make

war.

What makes ‘The Accursed Fathers’

tower high above the multitude of

other feminist novels is the way in

which the language of the men is

analysed. The author casts a critical

eye on their man talk, with its vulgar

profundities, hidden

violence and military

rhythms.

But the endless litanies

of lament from the

submissive female

characters also come

under fire. The nuances

are more apparent in

the concluding part of the novel, in

which the elderly Pam looks back at

her life and one single man makes her

believe in love once again.

Monika van Paemel compares her own

work with that of Virginia Woolf, but

she could just as easily have referred

to Elfriede Jelinek and Jeanette. She is

a writer of European stature.’

‘This book towers high above the

multitude of other feminist

novels’

Monika van Paemel (1945) wanted to write ‘Alice in Wonderland’ herself, but Lewis Caroll beat her to it. The granddaughter of a woman who had made her career as a building contractor, Van Paemel took to her writer’s desk after years of illness (she suffered from a brain disorder at the age of nine) and as many years of reading and started her career as an oeuvre constructor.In hindsight, her first, immediately recognisable books appear to be preparatory sketches for her hefty, breakthrough novel with feminist overtones ‘The Accursed Fathers’ (1985). In 2004 she published the counterpart to her chef d’oeuvre, ’Celestine’ or The Heavenly Mothers’, in which the fourteen-year-old Celestine goes into service with the Van Puynbroekx family after the Great War. As a shadow-mother, she raises three generations and keeps the chaotic household afloat. Van Paemel now has a dozen epic novels to her name.

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8 Herman Brusselmans THE MAN WHO FOUND A JOB

The Man Who Found a JobHERMAN BRUSSELMANSLouis Tinner works as a librarian in the Book Palace, the ‘recreational library’ of a

large, otherwise unidentified government agency. He spends his long days drenched

in loneliness and idleness surrounded by shelf after shelf of books. The few visitors

to the library are either sent packing or brushed off with books they don’t want,

books often missing a few essential pages that Tinner has been known to remove

from time to time. When he attacks a co-worker who turns out to be the son of the

boss, it looks as if the end for Tinner is nigh.

Brusselmans’ combination of desperation and emptiness and the sardonic indulgence

of this general malaise in the innocent, unsuspecting citizen caused a major stir

in the traditional Flemish literature of the 1980s, as did his cynical but irresistible

humour and immediate style. ‘The Man Who Found a Job’ is also a milestone in his

extensive oeuvre, serving as unique point of reference for one of Flanders’ most

read authors.

With a literary output of two books a year, Herman Brusselmans (1957), son of a livestock merchant, now has sixty semi-autobiographical books to his name. The majority describe the existence of one of his alter-egos, mostly a man without ambition who likes pubs, talking through the back of his neck, and girls. His third novel ‘The Man Who Found a Job’ (1985) was Brusselmans’ breakthrough. Together with Tom Lanoye and Kristien Hemmerechts, he represented a new crop of authors that emerged within the Flemish literary world at the beginning of the 1980s. His work is typified by its substantial autobiographical content, with booze, sex, cigarettes and boredom as recurring themes. Brusselmans is a well-known media figure in Flanders, a frequent guest on talk shows and discussion programmes, and a regular contributor to TV soccer debates. He also writes columns for a variety of magazines. He is thus celebrated for his cutting sense of humour and his controversial statements.

‘THE LITERARY REINCARNATION OF JOHN BONHAM’HAROLD POLIS, publisher of Polis (Flanders) and publicist

‘The Man Who Found a Job’ is so good

it makes you think that many other

books are really bad. Everything is

where it should be in the book, which

is in sharp contrast to

the heavy 1980s, the

chaotic period that

remains forever coupled

with the main character

Louis Tinner.

Brusselmans’ novel

is the opposite of shameless and

insensitive. Tinner soaks up the

insanity of the world. He defends

himself by taking the blows, until

he breaks and collapses, felled by

boredom. The motionless eighties

left little room for fantasy. Heroes like

the demonic banker Gordon Gekko

from ‘Wall Street’ (1987) – ‘greed is

good’ – claimed that the accumulation

of wealth and success would be our

redemption. Oppressive respectability

was also an option. It was as if history

had ground to a standstill. Absolutely

nothing was happening, and Tinner

makes that painfully

clear.

Brusselmans conquered

the rural and urban

reality in the guise of

a Handsome Young

God. The blowhard

gasbag Brusselmans appeared to be

omnipresent, spreading the word and

entertaining the people in bookshops,

cellars, pubs, youth clubs, libraries

and barns. He did this as the literary

reincarnation of John Bonham, Led

Zeppelin’s legendary drummer. A few

decades after the invention of the

transistor radio, vinyl records, and the

wah-wah pedal, pop culture finally

found its way into Flemish prose.’

ORIGINAL TITLE De man die werk vond (1985, Prometheus, 152 pages)TRANSLATIONS French (La Longue Vue, 1987), Hungarian (Jelenkor, 1997 / 2007)RIGHTS Ronit Palache - [email protected]

‘Pop culture finally found its way into

Flemish prose’

AUNT JEANNOT’S HAT Eric de Kuyper 9

Aunt Jeannot’s HatERIC DE KUYPER‘Aunt Jeannot’s Hat. Scenes from a Childhood in Brussels’ takes place in a suburb of

the city shortly after the Second World War. The air is alive with the excitement of

newfound freedom and life has taken its leave of traditional conventions. The chaos

is contagious, and widow De Kuyper’s family share in the unrestrained atmosphere

in their own way. The family may be irregular – no father and little money – but

it’s not experienced as a burden. In a life that appears to consist of paying visits

to one another, the reader is introduced to the entire family, from grandmother to

great grandchildren, the uncles, brothers and sisters, and the frivolous Aunt Jeannot,

bonbons guzzling and revelling in sensation. In between we encounter the main

character, a boy growing up, discovering the world of the imagination in a playful

manner. The magnificent and the mundane of a young boy’s life are presented in

countless details, with an occasional stroke of light.

Eric de Kuyper (1942) is a born aesthete and a splendid maverick in Belgian literature. In addition to his writing he is also a film director and theoretician, a semiologist and a major connoisseur of ballet, theatre and opera.His enticing autobiographical cycle, which opened with ‘By the Sea’ (1988) and from the following novel onwards - ‘Aunt Jeannot’s Hat’ (1989) – started to attract nominations and prizes, quickly earned him the title ‘Proust of the Low Countries’. De Kuyper is a chronicler with a refined writing style. He writes with sympathy for his characters. Keywords such as melancholy, gracious refinement and beauty typify his kaleidoscopic-filmic collections of scenes. The film version of ‘Three Sisters in London’ (1996) – taken from his phenomenal family chronicle – was launched in the cinemas. His ‘My Life as an Actor’, with the author as actor in the role of Dr. Schönberger, has also been announced.

‘FEW AUTHORS CAN WRITE IN SUCH A FILMIC STYLE’JUDIT GERA,

‘I was already a fan of Eric de Kuyper

before I became his translator. I know

of few authors who can write in such

a filmic style. As I read, I couldn’t

help be reminded of

Fellini’s ‘Amarcord’.

‘Aunt Jeannot’s Hat’

is a northern version

of this film: an ode to

youth, family, a city, but

also to the process of

remembering itself.

The novel is a sea of realia, whereby

the world it presents is enormously

authentic. Paradoxically enough,

all those strange details create a

familiarity. A ‘merveilleux’ might

be a sort of cake in De Kuyper’s

context, but for the generation of

Hungarian readers to which I belong

it’s a ‘mignon’ from the Budapest

of the 1950s. In what is strange and

unfamiliar, we recognise the familiar

and recognisable. We feel at home

because Eric de Kuyper

knows something

essential about his

childhood.

‘Aunt Jeannot’s Hat’

consists of numerous short

episodes that function as

miniature genre paintings

or pieces of mosaic. Together they form

a cheerful, effervescent whole. The

wealth of details – the interiors, shops,

streets, clothing, customs – enchants the

reader to such an extent that the novel

reads like a train. The author avoids the

pitfall of false nostalgia by combining

melancholy with humour.’

ORIGINAL TITLE De hoed van tante Jeannot (1989, Sun (republished by Vantilt), 205 pages)TRANSLATIONS French (Editions Labor, 1996), Hungarian (Noran, 1998) RIGHTS Eric de Kuyper - [email protected]

‘A northern version of Fellini’s

Amarcord’

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professor of Dutch Literature in Budapestand translator of ‘Aunt Jeannot’s Hat’

10 Leo Pleysier WHITE IS ALWAYS NICE

White is Always NiceLEO PLEYSIER‘White is Always Nice’ is the extended monologue of an old woman who has just

died but cannot stop talking. In a one-sided conversation with her silent son, who is

presumably imagining all this, she keeps up her usual nonstop chatter as her body is

laid out and preparations are made for the wake. Her gossip about the neighbours,

her stories about family and the war, her gentle chiding and hilarious non-sequiturs,

make her a captivating character.

Not only are we given a glimpse into the lively mind of this simple farmer’s wife and

mother of six, but we are also granted a powerful impression of her interlocutor – the

son, who doesn’t say a word until the very end, but whose silences speak volumes.

Indeed, the white gaps on the page separating the mother’s soliloquies become a

strong visual metaphor (with a nod to the book’s title) for both the son’s grief and

his stoic acceptance of his mother’s shortcomings.

Leo Pleysier (1945) made his debut in 1971 with a collection of stories entitled ‘Mirliton’, which was met with immediate praise. A trilogy of novels followed under the heading ‘Where Was I Again?’, but it was with ‘White is Always Nice’ that Pleysier found his passport to a broader public. This unparalleled book is a linguistic portrait of a mother, both literally and figuratively. It set the tone for a further two novels with a female voice – someone’s sister and a nun/aunt respectively: ‘The Cupboard’ and ‘The Yellow River is frozen’ (National Prize for Prose 1996). Pleysier’s primary merit is his capacity to recast the language of everyday people in literary language. This is not to say that his focus is always on the region in which he was born and raised. On the contrary, some of his novels have distant horizons.

‘A MOVING STORY ABOUT ORIGINS, MOURNING AND LANGUAGE’SVEN GATZ, Flemish Minister of Culture

‘If I have a visitor who’s interested

in the contents of my bookcase,

my index finger has been inclined

from time to time to caress the

spine of Leo Pleysier’s

‘White is Always Nice’.

‘Ever heard of it?’ I ask.

‘It’s magnificent and

Flemish to the core’,

I say, ‘about a dead

mother and her son,

about lamenting and

complaining, written

with restrained rancour,

but at the same time

with so much love and respect. It’s a

moving story about origins, mourning

and language.’

The story begins with the son standing

at his elderly mother’s deathbed.

Marie has talked him to a standstill his

entire life with her vernacular wisdom

and simple language. Her monologue

charms the son and through him the

reader with its endearing simplicity

and folksiness. But

Leo Pleysier’s skill and

ingenuity allows him

to introduce love and

warmth beyond shame

into the mother’s

dialect and to smuggle

in respect far above

condescension.

Before the son can

let her go, he has to

want her back. It is this mighty and

recognisable description of the mix of

emotions we face when a person who

has dominated our life is suddenly no

longer with us that struck me most

about ‘White is Always Nice’.’

ORIGINAL TITLE Wit is altijd schoon (1989, De Bezige Bij, 120 pages)PRIZES F. Bordewijk Prize (1990), shortlisted for the AKO Literature PrizeTRANSLATIONS English excerpts in Dutch Crossing vol. 19 (1995) and Story International (1992)RIGHTS Marijke Nagtegaal, Uta Matten - [email protected], [email protected]

‘Written with restrained

rancour, but at the same time with so much

love and respect’

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THE CHARRED ALPHABET Paul de Wispelaere 11

The Charred AlphabetPAUL DE WISPELAERE‘The Charred Alphabet’ follows the life of the author from October 1990 to September

1991 and draws associative connections between current affairs and events from the

past. This literary diary is a colourful mixture of stories, impressions of and reflections

on literature, art, love, nature, politics, and growing old. A thread runs through it all,

a thread of sensitive memories of lost loves interwoven with the experience of new

love, marked inevitably by the process of ageing.

According to the author, ‘The Charred Alphabet’ – title from a verse by Octavio Paz

– is a perfect articulation of De Wispelaere’s ‘middle position’ in life. Born too late

to experience his parents’ still mythological world of craftsmanship, and too early

to fully embrace modernity and technological progress. The title also alludes to a

language and a world shot to pieces by two world wars. At the same time, it contains

an image of new life: the silence that followed the burning of that old, dilapidated

alphabet sounded like the opening chord of a new language.

Paul de Wispelaere (1928) was born the son of a carriage maker, became a teacher of Dutch and English, and later professor of modern Dutch literature at the newly established University of Antwerp. He served as editor of a variety of literary journals and was responsible for a vast amount of literary critique, essays and fiction. He delivered pioneering work on the great Flemish writer Louis Paul Boon, for whom he established a documentation centre.His own magnum opus is without doubt ‘The Charred Alphabet’, a romantic diary as he himself preferred to call it. It was published in the prestigious series Privé-domein from De Arbeiderspers, in which autobiographical writings enjoy pride of place. De Wispelaere was thus granted a place next to his favourite diarists: Frisch, Gombrowicz, Paustovski. In 1998 he was awarded the highly prestigious Dutch Literature Prize, which honours an oeuvre rather than a single book.

‘THIS BOOK ENCOMPASSES AN ENTIRE LIFE’FRANCIS DANNEMARK,

‘I discovered ‘L’alphabet calciné’ thanks

to Paul Buekenhout of Passa Porta,

with whom I had the pleasure to

work on a number of festivals and on

the preparation of the

anthology ‘Littérature

en Flandre’, which I

published in 2003.

I don’t read Dutch like

a native, but I’ve often

been aware that you

can grasp the magic

of a book without a

perfect knowledge of the language in

which it was written. The pages I read

from Paul de Wispelaere touched me

deeply and I wanted to know more

about the story. So I had it translated!

And I discovered a book that differed

from every other, and in every respect,

a book that encompassed an entire

life. The writing was atypically precise

and honest.

Why choose this book? A fragment

from the opening pages

should suffice to answer

such a question: “It’s

night-time. We’re sitting

under the lamp that

illuminates our shapes

and movements. Only

our faces and hands

are exposed, and that’s

what we’re looking at. […] You have

strong, soft, sweet hands, she says.

Not at all, I say, yet I’m happy she

speaks her own truth. It’s the truth

of love, of course, but any other truth

would be unbearable.’’

ORIGINAL TITLE Het verkoolde alfabet (1992, De Arbeiderspers, 311 pages)PRIZES Shortlisted AKO Literature PrizeTRANSLATIONS French (Le Castor Astral, 2006)RIGHTS Patricia de Groot - [email protected]

‘The pages I read from Paul de Wispelaere touched me

deeply’

writer and publisher of Escales du Nord (Le Castor Astral, France)

12 Kristien Hemmerechts CHRISTMAS AND OTHER LOVE STORIES

Christmas and Other Love Stories KRISTIEN HEMMERECHTSLove and what follows is the theme of this collection of ten stories: about the

catastrophe ánd the tenderness of sex, about habit, love-hate, memory, self-

pity, rollicking revenge. In the opening story, ‘Christmas’, a man sets out to find a

Christmas tree for his wife and is thrilled by the exceptional reward he gets for his

efforts. The story is a genuine and endearing ode to love.

In the closing – autobiographical – story, the author tries to find words for the

unspeakable: the death of her two infant sons. ‘Fairytale’ is a key narrative, alluding to

recurring themes, motifs, images and symbols in the work of Kristien Hemmerechts.

The author fashions intriguing characters. Her matter-of-fact, razor-sharp descriptions

of what is considered normal human behaviour lay bare the burlesque or even

surrealistic nature of the apparently mundane. Her work dissects the mechanism by

which we – mostly inadvertently – hurt one another. In spite of their shortcomings

her characters have a capacity for tenderness.

The Flemish author Kristien Hemmerechts (1955) made her debut in English with three stories in the anthology ‘First Fictions’ (1986) published by Faber and Faber. Following this prestigious start she switched to writing in her mother tongue. ‘A Pillar of Salt’ (1987), her Dutch debut, catapulted her into the world of literature. Together with Tom Lanoye and Herman Brusselmans she has henceforth been considered a key figure in the new generation of writers.In addition to being a wonderful writer of short stories, Hemmerechts is a gifted novelist. She has published both fiction and nonfiction, often focussing on relationships, trauma and desire. The author is one of Flanders’ best known opinion makers. Her book ‘The Woman Who Fed the Dogs’ (English translation published by World Editions) is inspired by the notorious Dutroux case. The novel, though attracting much praise in the Netherlands, was felt to be highly controversial in Flanders.

‘PERFECTLY CONTROLLED, MELANCHOLY, POETIC PROSE’MAGGIE GEE, writer, professor creative writing

‘I first came across Kristien at one of

the famous British Council Cambridge

Seminars, held at a Cambridge college

in 1982. We were both young women,

and united by that –

both struggling slightly

with the sense of our

youth in the presence

of the older writers and

administrators. Kristien

read an enigmatic,

beautifully paced story

about a relationship

between a young women and a man

who was never stated to be gay,

but was certainly ambivalent about

sex with a woman. The phrase ‘his

big, soft cock’ seemed shocking and

exciting back then in a way that it

would not today. There was a sense of

quiet control that was impressive. Of

all the writing I heard at that seminar,

Kristien’s is the only piece that has

haunted me.

I was published by

Faber at the time and

when my editor, Robert

McCrum, asked me

to recommend young

writers for Faber’s new

‘Introductions’ series,

Kristien’s was the name

that came to mind, and I

was delighted when it was accepted.

In the meantime she has gone on

to become a successful writer – as

her perfectly controlled, melancholy,

poetic prose with its edge of dry wit

deserved. She was a distinguished

writer even then, in her beginnings.’

ORIGINAL TITLE Kerst en andere liefdesverhalen (1992, Atlas Contact, 191 pages)PRIZES Shortlisted for the AKO Literature Prize, Frans Kellendonk Oeuvre Prize TRANSLATIONS One of the stories, ‘Fairy Tale’, has been published by The New England Review (www.nereview.com)RIGHTS 2 Seas Agency, Marleen Seegers - [email protected]

‘She was a distinguished writer even then, in her beginnings’

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HIGH KEY Pol Hoste 13

High KeyPOL HOSTEIn ‘High Key’ – a technical term for a style of photography in which images consist

of mostly light tones – Hoste tries to create a new reality via the imagination and

association techniques. The author endeavours to chart our multicultural, capitalistic,

globalised world on the basis of a few marginal notes. The story departs from tradi-

tional narrative styles and follows its own unique logic.

‘High Key’ is constructed from a series of ‘monologues, dances and stories’ that

can be read as improvisations or variations on a theme. With the help of textual

fragments, the author recounts the lives of characters that have a role to play in the

world of the arts such as writers, dancers etc. The characters’ search for their inner

life history takes shape in reflective dialogues and short stories written in a highly

evocative style. Their voices do not produce statements, but rather scraps of conver-

sations with a rigorously instinctive charge. ‘High Key’ should perhaps be read as an

incantation or a magic spell.

Pol Hoste’s words and sentences have to be savoured like a dish in a three star restaurant: slowly, turning flavours and structures on the tongue and letting them penetrate to the brain.Hoste’s ‘High Key’ is a postmodern novel, a collection of text types: monologues, dances and stories. And no, you’re not mistaken: dance is also a text type. The author isn’t inclined to write get-in-and-drive prose. If you check-in with Hoste you are guaranteed an adventurous trip, an experiment, an essay on language and text and self-analysis. Pol Hoste (1947) was raised by communist parents in the 1960s and the rigours of that environment left him with an analytical mind and with stories to tell. His breakthrough came in 1987 with ‘Feminine Singular’. In his more recent ‘99: from Flemish to Catwalk’ (2012), he serves up 99 pieces, sketches, notes, reflections. Some would call it polyphony.

‘INTOXICATING BALLET OF WORDS’JORIS GERITS, author, literature professor, reviewer

‘In a manner unique in the Dutch

language, Pol Hoste’s oeuvre, with

‘High Key’ as its culmination, holds up

a mirror to the reader reflecting our

fragmented existence in

a world that has grown

complex, multicultural

and transnational.

I’ve read and reviewed

Hoste’s novels since he

made his debut with

‘The Changes’ in 1979.

As professor of literature,

I regularly focused on

‘High Key’ in my classes

in the 1990s because I considered it an

excellent novel to introduce students

to postmodern literature and the study

of literature. I have also written about

it in professional journals because I

am convinced of the irreplaceability

of language-critical prose, of texts

without ‘narrative’, the interpretation

of which is not steered towards a

predetermined goal.

‘High Key’ is an

intoxicating ballet of

words and its author is a

choreographer of text. As

the jury rightly observed

when it awarded Pol

Hoste the Ark Prize for

the Free Word in 2002,

the Dutch speaking

literary landscape would

be seriously impoverished if this

challenging prose, from an author

who stubbornly upholds his own

artistic vision, were to disappear.’

ORIGINAL TITLE High Key (1995, Prometheus, 231 pages)TRANSLATIONS Italian (Mobydick, 1998), an English sample was published as ‘Outlandia’ in ‘Been there, read that!’ published by Victoria University Press New ZealandRIGHTS Ronit Palache - [email protected]

‘Challenging prose, from an

author who stubbornly upholds his own artistic

vision’

14 Peter Verhelst TONGUECAT

TonguecatPETER VERHELSTPerfect order always degenerates into chaos and revolutions into hell. In ‘Tonguecat’,

Peter Verhelst describes a city falling apart and descending into violence. The story

takes the form of a dark allegorical fairy tale with a king, a city, a God (Prometheus)

and a girl (Ulrike). The mythical world is replaced by a contemporary earthly city

where increasingly rapid rejuvenation has been exalted as the highest good.

Prometheus, the titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humankind,

descends to earth and is taken in tow by Ulrike, who shows him the slums where

revolution is brewing. But dissatisfaction is rife at court too. Prometheus is murdered

and a severe winter sets in that will ravage the land for years. When the king goes

in search of human warmth and disappears, the revolution breaks out.

‘Tonguecat’ is a real literary tour de force, a visionary story about today’s urban

society and about revolutions.

Peter Verhelst (1962) is a novelist, scriptwriter, myth and theatre maker, poet and picture book author all in one. As a child he wanted to become a painter, but decided not to paint but to write from a live model. The shock that catapulted him into writing took place when he was eighteen, on a beach in Spain, reading a book by Ivo Michiels he’d borrowed from his father. ‘Tonguecat’, his ‘brothel of stories’ that was to draw nominations and prizes over a period of three years after its publication, brought him a large readership. This breakthrough novel set the stylistic tone: fairytale-like, sensual linguistic acrobatics in verse and narrative. The myths of the ancient Greeks are in Verhelst’s genes and in his work. Verhelst has evolved in the meantime into an exceptional poet, writer and theatre maker, and his generosity means that the logic of the reader gets the last word.

‘A UNIQUE 21ST CENTURY BRUEGHELIAN VOICE’SHERRY MARX, English translator of ‘Tonguecat’

‘I first heard of Verhelst when I was

approached by the Literature Fund to

translate a sample of ‘Tonguecat’ for

the Frankfurt Book Fair. Reading the

book before embark-

ing on the translation

proved to be both an

infuriating and intox-

icating experience.

Infuriating because

I had to ‘unlearn’ all

my previous reading

strategies and felt an

overwhelming sense

of disorientation, intoxicating because

the hallucinatory prose crept inexora-

bly under my skin and left me hooked

on wanting to know where this sur-

real world would take me. And so

it all began. Not surprisingly, trans-

lating Verhelst’s poetic and sensory

word-paintings turned into an exhila-

rating experience. Trying to retain the

book’s essential oddity while also ren-

dering it intelligible proved a relent-

less challenge.

The literary critics, who

are better placed to

identify ‘Tonguecat’ as

a modern classic, have

likened Verhelst’s work

to that of Jorge Luis

Borges and William

Gibson. I can only say

that ‘Tonguecat’ struck

me as a unique 21st

century Brueghelian voice, obliquely

and disturbingly addressing the

unpredictability of our future and

compelling us, as readers, to assume

nothing and stay alert. Now, a decade

on, this assessment seems more apt

than ever.’

ORIGINAL TITLE Tongkat (1999, Prometheus, 342 pages)PRIZES Golden Owl, Flemish Community Prize for Prose, F. Bordewijk PrizeTRANSLATIONS English (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, USA, 2003), Arabic (Al Kotob Khan, Egypt, 2015), Bulgarian (Sonm, 2015)RIGHTS Ronit Palache - [email protected]

‘Reading the book proved to be both an

infuriating and intoxicating experience’

© w

ww

.chr

isw

ardp

hoto

grap

hy.c

om

THE PLAGUE David Van Reybrouck 15

The PlagueDAVID VAN REYBROUCKWhile working on his thesis on prehistoric archaeology, David Van Reybrouck came

across the accusation that the Belgian writer and Nobel Prize winner Maurice

Maeterlinck had plagiarised from the work of the South African author, journalist

and physicist Eugène Marais, in his book ‘La vie des termites’ (1926). He decided to

investigate the case himself. His quest led him from Maeterlinck’s archive in Belgium,

via a collector of Maeterlinck paraphernalia, libraries, the internet and mountains of

reading material to South Africa itself, where he picked up Marais’ trail.

David Van Reybrouck immersed himself in the lives of Maeterlinck and Marais, and in

contemporary South Africa. ‘The Plague’ skilfully interweaves his findings with socio-

economic and political information, with details of artistic fashions and the spirit of

the time in which the two authors lived, finally placing it all in the context of cultural

history and scientific developments.

‘The Plague’ sweeps the reader along in a thrilling literary adventure, which leaves

its image on the mind’s eye long after the last page has been turned.

David Van Reybrouck (1971) studied archaeology and philosophy and both are evident in his prose: he digs and he reflects. He traded in his life as an academic for that of a socially engaged publicist after 9/11, the day on which he celebrated his thirtieth birthday. In 2011, he launched G1000, a citizens’ initiative that has evolved into a platform for democratic renewal in Belgium.Van Reybrouck is Belgium’s toughest producer of literary nonfiction. ‘The Plague’ (2001) was immediately awarded the debut prize, and his masterful multiple award winning ‘Congo. A History’ (2010) attracted an extremely large readership (250,000 sold in Flanders and the Netherlands + 10 translations). The author is also a gifted poet, theatre writer and essayist. In addition to the major works already mentioned, he also has three plays, a novel, several collections of poetry, a pile of essays, and a controversial and twice awarded pamphlet ‘An Appeal for Populism’ to his name.

‘LITERARY DETECTIVE STORY WITH A SUPERB NARRATIVE’NICOL STASSEN, publisher Protea Boekhuis (South Africa)

‘It was Leon Rousseau who advised

me to read ‘The Plague’ by David

Van Reybrouck. Rousseau wrote a

biography of Eugène

Marais (Die groot

verlange / The Dark

Stream), which played

an important role in

Van Reybrouck’s book.

Rousseau’s work is

generally considered

to be one of the best

biographies ever written of a South

African figure, so his recommendation

wasn’t to be taken lightly. South

African newspapers also published

several favourable reviews of the

original Dutch version, which also

helped convince me.

It turned out to be a tremendous book

in every respect. David is drawn into

the complex political situation of an

emerging modern South Africa. The

result is a literary detective story into

which intellectual discourse, fictive

elements, faction,

travelogue and a

confrontation with

the future of Africa

flow together to

create a single superb

narrative.

Protea Boekhuis has

already published

more that 120 Afrikaans translations

of Flemish and Dutch authors. The

linguistic and cultural ties between

Flemish, Dutch and Afrikaans make

this only logical. But of all the Flemish

titles we have ever published, ‘The

Plague’ was the first. And it remains

one of the most important to the

present day.’

ORIGINAL TITLE De plaag (2001, Meulenhoff | Manteau (currently published by De Bezige Bij), 334 pages)PRIZES Debut Prize 2002, Shortlist Golden Owl 2002TRANSLATIONS Afrikaans (Protea Boekhuis, 2003), French (Actes Sud, 2008), Hungarian (Gondolat, 2010)RIGHTS Marijke Nagtegaal, Uta Matten - [email protected], [email protected]

‘Of all the Flemish titles we have ever

published, ‘The Plague’ was the

first’

© L

enny

Oos

terw

ijk

16 Annelies Verbeke SLEEP!

Sleep!ANNELIES VERBEKEThis is the story of two insomniacs, a young woman called Maya and an older man,

Benoit. Maya wanders the city at night, envying those who can take a good night’s

rest for granted. When she meets the equally insomniac and vulnerable Benoit,

they empathise immediately. Maya recognizes a fellow sufferer in Benoit, who helps

make her existence a little more bearable.

Verbeke writes about the underdog, about people whose poignant yearning for

a normal life arouses our compassion. She uses powerful, well-chosen metaphors to

underpin her story and takes us to the heart of her characters’ loneliness, impotence

and feelings of insignificance.

Most surprising of all is the tone of the book: simultaneously concise, terse and

poetic, with a dash of irony, yet brimming nevertheless with genuine sympathy.

‘Sleep!’ is a convincing novel in which the author uses the complex personalities

of her characters to pen a strikingly insightful vision of life and its experiences.

Annelies Verbeke was born – as she herself puts it – on the coldest day in 1976, and studied Germanic Literature and Linguistics together with scriptwriting. Her first novel ‘Sleep!’ (2003) was an immediate hit in the Netherlands, even before her native Belgium fell in love with it en masse. Verbeke’s columns and opinion pieces feature regularly in newspapers and magazines. In addition to four novels, she has published two collections of short stories, a photo book, a graphic novel, and four theatre plays. Keywords: snappy, slightly absurdist, weirdoes and wistful nostalgia. She is well on the way to realising the epithet ‘most promising writer of her generation’. ‘Thirty Days’, a novel that is more expansive and thematically broader than her previous work, appeared in the spring of 2015 and was welcomed with four and five star reviews in the Dutch and Flemish press.

‘THE BIRTH OF A NEW VOICE’ERIC VISSER,

‘In 2003, we selected a manuscript

from our massive pile of submissions

entitled ‘Sleep!’ The author, a certain

Annelies Verbeke, noted in her

accompanying letter that she had

wanted to send a huge

cake along with her

book from which she

would suddenly appear

and introduce herself.

That brought a smile

to our faces, but

what followed was

more important: the

manuscript itself was full of promise

from the outset and that promise

became more real with every page.

Her work had stylistic strength,

thematic appeal and clarity of

structure. We invited the author for a

conversation and the rest is history.

A positive review in the Dutch paper

NRC, in which ‘Sleep!’ was praised

as the best debut since Arnon

Grunberg’s ‘Blue Mondays’, gave the

book an incredible kick start. ‘Sleep!’

sold 75,000 copies, won the the

Flemish debut prize and

the Gouden Ezelsoor,

and was translated into

more than 20 languages.

‘Sleep!’ marked the birth

of a new voice in Dutch-

language literature, and

Annelies Verbeke has

proven with her oeuvre

so far that her debut wasn’t just a

stroke of beginner’s luck. Her work is

still slightly out of the box, continually

focussing on new goals, and she

remains a fervent advocate of the

short story. All in all, a tremendous

ambassador for Dutch-language

literature.’

ORIGINAL TITLE Slaap! (2003, De Geus, 160 pages)PRIZES Woman and Culture Debut Award 2004, Flemish Best Debut Award 2004, Gouden Ezelsoor Award 2005 for the best sold debutTRANSLATIONS German (Reclam, 2005), French (Mercure de France, 2005), Albanian (Fan Noli, 2012), Complex Chinese (Han Shian), Croatian (Andrijići, 2008), Czech (Kniha Zlin, 2010), Danish (Ries, 2005), Estonian (Eesti Ekspressi, 2006), Finnish (Avain, 2006), Georgian (Link), Hungarian (Jelenkor, 2007), Italian (Instar Libri, 2005), Lithuanian (Vaga, 2006), Polish (Draft, 2014), Rumanian (Univers, 2006), Russian (Azbuka, 2011), Slovenian (Zalozba Tuma, 2006), Spanish (Cantaro, Argentina, 2006 / Seix Barral, Spain, 2008), Turkish (Ayrinti, 2005)RIGHTS 2 Seas Agency, Marleen Seegers - [email protected]

‘All in all, a tremendous ambassador for Dutch-languageliterature.’

© A

lex

Salin

as

founder and publisher of De Geus and World Editions

OMEGA MINOR Paul Verhaeghen 17

Omega MinorPAUL VERHAEGHEN‘Omega Minor’ is a total novel with an international air, in which the author explores

the essence of human nature – and by extension ‘la condition humaine’ – against

the background of twentieth-century history. The Second World War, the persecution

of the Jews and the dropping of the atom bomb are of course crucial events that

demand attention, but individuals are central to the novel.

In the context of a cosmic-existential vision, Verhaeghen spins together several

remarkable life stories that become increasingly intertwined and woven into history

as the book progresses. Ultimately all these characters become caught up together

in the book’s exciting and harrowingly startling finale, in Berlin, fifty years to the day

after the death of Hitler.

Its baroque, epic narrative style and structure, its ambition to lay bare human

motivation and its determination to present ‘science, art and memory’ as one great

interwoven whole make ‘Omega Minor’ a fascinating and thoroughly impressive

book. Its all-embracing and unique approach to a universal theme carries it far

beyond the borders of the region in which it originated.

Can you talk about ‘an immense oeuvre’ when it only consists of three books? Yes, if your name is Paul Verhaeghen and your third book is ‘Omega Minor’, a hefty 900g, and an instant classic. ‘Omega Minor’ is the first encyclopaedic novel in Dutch literature. Since its publication, Verhaeghen can confidently line up side by side with renowned American ‘encyclopaedists’ like Thomas Pynchon and Richard Powers. The latter crowned Verhaeghen with the words: ‘the entire twentieth century in a single book’, and The Independent described the appearance of the American translation – by Paul Verhaeghen himself – as ‘A blast of nuclear fiction’.Paul Verhaeghen’s prize-winning debut ‘Lichtenberg’ (1996) stood out immediately for its style, composition, multiple narrative layers, humour and playful intellectualism. Verhaeghen (1965) is professor at the School of Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, his research domains including cognition and brain science and cognitive aging.

‘ENORMOUS NOVEL WITH DENSE PROSE’JOHN O’BRIEN, publisher Dalkey Archive Press (US)

‘After many years, a publisher usually

forgets exactly how a certain book

was selected, because there are so

many different ways this

comes about. But in the

case of ‘Omega Minor’

I remember exactly

how this happened.

I had been brought to

Antwerp by the Flemish

Literature Fund to meet

with publishers. At the

end of one meeting, the

publisher mentioned

that the American

novelist Richard Powers had very

much liked a recently published novel,

‘Omega Minor’. He gave me a 25 page

sample of this enormous novel with

its dense prose, and I read the sample

on a midnight train back to Brussels.

The decision to publish was made

then.

When I received the translation (done

by the author himself,

a true rarity), I skimmed

it and knew immediately

that Paul had succeeded.

The Independent Foreign

Fiction Prize came as

a delightful surprise.

I wish I could say that all

of this had happened as

the result of a carefully

crafted plan, but of

course its publication

and success consisted of a series

of ‘accidents’, but accidents made

possible by the Fund’s help.

Flemish literature is a treasure trove

of such writing, but so little, quite

regrettably, gets into English.’

ORIGINAL TITLE Omega minor (2004, De Bezige Bij Antwerpen, 614 pages)PRIZES Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2008), Flemish Community Prize for Prose (2005), F. Bordewijk Prize (2005)TRANSLATIONS English (Dalkey Archive Press, USA, 2007), German (Eichborn, 2006), French (Le cherche midi, 2010), Greek (Polis, 2011), Hungarian (Gondolat, 2011), Italian (Baldini & Castoldi)RIGHTS Marijke Nagtegaal, Uta Matten - [email protected], [email protected]

‘I read the sample on a midnight

train back to Brussels. The decision to publish was made then’

© L

i-H

ua H

an

18 Patricia de Martelaere THE UNEXPECTED ANSWER

The Unexpected Answer PATRICIA DE MARTELAEREIn the novel ‘The Unexpected Answer’, the author gives the floor to six different

women. All six are enthralled by the poet Godfried H. Four have a relationship with

the married Godfried, a man who likes blue silk shirts, eats cheese crusts and snores.

Esther (who is painting a portrait of him), the scientist Clara, Sybille (who is in therapy

with Godfried’s psychiatrist wife), and Marina (his former student), are perpetually

torn between their desires and their determination to turn their back on him. None

of them can call the man her own, and as a result he is no longer the man his wife

Anna can call her own.

‘The Unexpected Answer’ is a sultry book, full of insatiable passion that explodes in

the penultimate chapter ‘The Love Letter’, an amalgam of letter fragments written

by the collective of women circling Godfried H., and ultimately a single woman who

appears in different guises.

Patricia de Martelaere (1957-2009) made her debut at the age of thirteen with the children’s book ‘King of the Wilderness’ (1971), about a lion trying to commit suicide. A number of De Martelaere’s later themes (such as existential doubt, suicide and death) were thus already present on paper, and in reality she was already a writer and philosopher in those early years. She was later to become a professor of philosophy.The language in her often brilliant philosophical writings and in her intriguing stories and novels is always crystal clear. Paradox was her preferred form. ‘If you can’t speak about something you must write about it,’ she said. Her work exudes disconsolateness and ‘a longing for disconsolateness’, as one of her essay collections is entitled. She wasn’t ashamed to dig deep. Patricia de Martelaere died of a brain tumour in 2009, leaving six novels, as many essay collections, a book of poems and a selection of tractates. All of them awe-inspiring.

‘BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHER OF HUMAN OBSESSIONS’ELISABETH LEIJNSE,

‘Patricia de Martelaere is one of the

most unique and intelligent writers

Flanders has ever known. And one

of the most mysterious. She didn’t

like autobiographical

writing, refused to give

interviews, and avoided

the cameras. The photo

on the back cover of her

novels was the absolute

boundary of her

self-communication.

Her philosophical

essays are blood-curdling intellectual

exercises about the art of loss, and

her novels are populated by characters

struggling with the fear of being

abandoned. They’re people who go

shopping at the local supermarket and

take the dog for a walk. They try to

escape their own psyche, but their self-

analysis drives them crazy. They want

to escape each other, but are unable

to walk away. They desire, implore,

command, beg, coerce and despise.

Patricia de Martelaere is the black and

white photographer of

human obsessions.

In ‘The Unexpected

Answer’ from 2004,

a number of women

are obsessed with the

same man, Godfried

H. Is he a man without

a core? Does he really

exist? Are these women facets of one

and the same eye? The story begins

in cool observation and crescendos

in rhythmic ecstasy towards a

staggering, almost surreal answer. It

is not surprising that ‘The Unexpected

Answer’ was awarded one of Flanders’

most prestigious literary prizes, the

Golden Owl Reader’s Prize.’

ORIGINAL TITLE Het onverwachte antwoord (2004, Meulenhoff, 285 pages)PRIZES Golden Owl Reader’s Prize 2005TRANSLATIONS ‘My Hand is Exhausted’, English excerpt in ‘Best European Fiction 2012’ (Dalkey Archive Press)RIGHTS Heirs Patricia De Martelaere - [email protected]

‘One of the most unique

and intelligent writers Flanders

has ever known’

© T

om V

an H

ove

professor of literature at the University of Namur

THE ANGEL MAKER Stefan Brijs 19

The Angel MakerSTEFAN BRIJSThe village of Wolfheim is a quiet little place until the geneticist Victor Hoppe returns

after an absence of nearly twenty years. The doctor brings with him his infant

children – three identical boys all sharing the same disfigurement. He keeps them

hidden away until Charlotte, the woman who is hired to care for them, begins to

suspect that the triplets – and the good doctor – aren’t quite what they seem.

As the villagers become increasingly suspicious, the story of Hoppe’s past begins to

unfold. During his university career, he succeeded in cloning mice and the ugly, weak

triplets are the result of his attempt at cloning himself.

In the dramatic ending he initiates a new experiment, while simultaneously

compromising his own existence. In his autism and his rigid way of thinking, his

oversimplification of the contrast between good and evil, Hoppe charges inexorably

towards open identification with Christ on the cross.

The Angel Maker is a chilling story that explores the ethical limits of science and

religion. This austere, impassive naturalist novel has a sophisticated and ingenious

plot that repeatedly astonishes the reader.

Stefan Brijs (1969) grew up in a working class family in Genk, trained as a teacher and taught himself to write. His debut was published in 1997. In the meantime, he has written five novels, a biography, two essay collections, a Christmas novella and a graphic novel. His international break-through came in 2005 with his novel ‘The Angel Maker’, which earned Brijs various important nominations and literary prizes at home and abroad. ‘Post for Mrs. Bromley’, published in 2011, was praised for its many layers and its heart-rending story of a friendship during the First World War. ‘Moon and Sun’ (2015) follows three generations on Curacao.

‘I IMMEDIATELY FELL IN LOVE WITH THIS ‘DIFFERENT’ BOOK’SHERIF BAKR, publisher of Al Arabia Publishing (Egypt)

‘I first heard about the book

‘The Angel Maker’ by Stefan Brijs at

the Frankfurt International Book Fair

in 2009. I immediately

fell in love with it.

I was exploring

Flemish and Dutch

literature. I thought

it would be like other

European literature,

but I discovered there

is something different

about it.

Dutch-language books

are very original and they tackle

subjects that nobody tackled before.

They mix psychology and science and

real life in a way that is very unique

and yet universal.

‘The Angel Maker’ can absolutely be

read in Egypt. Although

it comes from a different

country with a different

culture, you can easily

relate to it.

It fits our programme

perfectly as we do

‘different’ books. I really

believe that this title

will be received as

something completely

new to what we are used to here in

Egypt or in the Arab world.’

ORIGINAL TITLE De engelenmaker (2005, Atlas Contact, 432 pages)PRIZES Golden Owl Reader’s Prize, the Royal Academy for Dutch Language and Literature’s five-yearly Prize, Boek-Delen Prize, Prix des Lecteurs Cognac, Euroregio-Schüler-Literaturpreis TRANSLATIONS English (Viking Penguin, USA, 2008 / Weidenfeld & Nicolson, UK, 2008), German (Btb, 2007), French (Héloïse d’Ormesson, 2010), Arabic (Al Arabia, Egypt, 2015), Azerbaijani (Alatoran), Complex Chinese (Ten Points, 2014), Simplified Chinese (Hunan, 2014), Danish (Turbine, 2012), Greek (Kastaniotis, 2007), Hebrew (Keter, 2009), Hungarian (Európa, 2008), Italian (Fazi, 2008), Macedonian (Antolog), Russian (Zakharov, 2010), Spanish (Alianza, 2009), Turkish (Destek, 2007)RIGHTS Hayo Deinum - [email protected]

‘Something completely new to what we are used to here in Egypt or in the

Arab world’

© M

elan

ie E

lst

20 Dimitri Verhulst THE MISFORTUNATES

The Misfortunates DIMITRI VERHULSTA boy lives in a forgotten village. His mother has abandoned her husband and child,

and the son now 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.

The family seems happy to accept their isolated, bleak lot – although the father does

feel that something’s missing in his life. He decides to take time out to deal with his

drinking, but when he gets back three months later, his old habits get the better of

his good intentions. His son is the only one who manages to distance himself from

this life, but not without a degree of emotional pain and melancholy.

Dimitri Verhulst draws the reader into a world without shame or manners, a world

of alienation and social deprivation, and he succeeds astonishingly in maintaining

a delicate equilibrium. While he succumbs to comic exaggeration in writing about

inept people, he also maintains a subtle emotional counterbalance between alter-

nating dependence and sympathy.

A zero-to-hero tale by Dimitri Verhulst (1972), streets ahead of every other Belgian writer. Verhulst published his own stories in his late teens, but celebrated his official debut on his 26th with the collection ‘The Room Next Door’. His masterpiece ‘The Misfortunates’ brought the country to a standstill.‘The Misfortunates’ is now in its 61st reprint, good for 250,000 copies in Flanders and the Netherlands. Verhulst is renowned for his pitch-black worldview, his tragicomedies and juicy, imaginative language, his engagement, his intimate portraits. His steady stream of novels, novellas, stories, poetry and theatre work divulge scenes from his youth, little by little, but he’s also not averse to writing stories on request. In the spring of 2015 he was the fifth Flemish author to provide the ‘Book Week Gift’, a Dutch initiative now in its 80th year.

‘GOOD, WARM AND WISE AS RODDY DOYLE’S THE COMMITMENTS’PHILIP GWYN JONES,

‘It was Tasja Dorkofikis who first

acquired Dimitri Verhulst’s work for

Portobello Books. That first book in

English was ‘Madame Verona Comes

Down the Hill’, which

was both elegaic and

moving. Tasja left

Portobello to live in

Switzerland and I

took over Dimitri’s

publishing.

What I really like

about Verhulst is his

ability to write in an extremely wide

range of registers and styles.

‘The Misfortunates’ is ribald,

unblinking and unapologetically raw

to reflect its (and Dimitri’s) origins in

beer-soaked backwoods Belgium. It’s

as good, as warm and wise, as Roddy

Doyle’s ‘The Commitments’ (and it

has the better filmed

version of the two). It

was named one of the

best books of 2012 by

The Irish Times.

And then again

Verhulst’s ‘Christ’s

Entry to Brussels’ is

vitriolic, dark and

searching, grappling with Belgium’s

recent history of moral taint. It has

been a privilege to publish him, and a

thrill to read him.’

ORIGINAL TITLE De helaasheid der dingen (2006, Atlas Contact, 207 pages)PRIZES Golden Owl Reader’s Prize 2007, Inktaap 2008TRANSLATIONS English (Portobello, UK, 2012 / Thomas Dunne Books, USA, 2013), German (Luch-terhand, 2007), French (Denoël, 2011), Bulgarian (option), Simplified Chinese (Choncqing Daily News Group), Danish (Ries, 2007), Estonian (NyNorden), Finnish (Avain, 2008), Hebrew (Carmel), Hungarian (Európa, 2010), Italian (Fazi, 2009), Japanese (Shinchosha, 2012), Korean (Open Books, 2011), Mace-donian (Antolog, 2014), Norwegian (Pax, 2011), Serbian (Clio, 2015), Slovenian (Goga, 2008), Spanish (Lengua de Trapo, 2011)RIGHTS Hayo Deinum - [email protected]

‘Ribald,unblinking and

unapologetically raw’

© L

ieve

Bla

ncqu

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Editor-at-large Scribe UK, formerly Granta/Portobello Books

WHILE THE GODS WERE SLEEPING Erwin Mortier 21

While the Gods Were SleepingERWIN MORTIERAs Helena feels death approaching, she looks back on her youth and the distress

of the First World War. A large portion of her memoirs is devoted to the difficult

relationship she had with her strict, 19th century bourgeoise mother, who did not

approve of Helena’s new views and lifestyle.

Erwin Mortier shows how the war made the solid, apparently stable pre-war social

establishment turn on its axis in a short period of time, drastically changeing the

way everyone thought and acted. The relationship between mother and daughter in

‘While the Gods Were Sleeping’ is symbolic of this profound historical breach.

The book takes place on the interface between history writ large and the lives

of ordinary people, between historiography and stunning literary prose. Erwin

Mortier presents this impressive account in a stately, baroque style, following in the

footsteps of an eminent literary tradition. A number of critics have compared him

with Marcel Proust. The topic and style make ‘While the Gods Were Sleeping’ in all

respects an exceptional literary experience.

It is said of poet and prose writer Erwin Mortier (1965) that he was ‘complete’ as a writer from his debut onwards. ‘Marcel’ set the tone for a consistent oeuvre with a particular fascination for the First World War. Mortier recounts the Great War in small stories. His expansive sentences and unfashionably rich baroque language are the author’s signature. ‘Marcel’, ‘My Fellow Skin’ and ‘Shutter Speed’ form a trilogy of youth and have been compared to string quartets, while the phenomenal best seller ‘While the Gods Were Sleeping’ (2008) has been likened to a symphony. The focus in ‘The Reflections’ (2014) is on war-tattered Edgard, the brother of Helena from ‘While the Gods Were Sleeping’, and his tormented memories of the war and of love. Mortier, like Tom Lanoye, also wrote a masterful ode to his mother: ‘Stammered Songbook’ (2011), about her loss of language as a result of Alzheimer’s.

‘TRULY UNIQUE AMONG CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS’DANIEL SETON, Commissioning Editor Pushkin Press (UK)

‘When we first read Paul Vincent’s

translation of ‘Godenslaap’, we were

amazed and entranced by the sheer

quality of the writing.

Erwin Mortier has an

uncanny ability to put

the unsayable into

words; to make the most

ephemeral concepts

intelligible. That half-

thought or vague feeling

you’ve had in the back

of your mind for the past few years?

There it is, set down on the page in

front of you, in beautiful, weightless

prose.

We knew he would be a perfect fit

for our list—a stunningly good, highly

acclaimed author, yet inexplicably

unavailable in English. We have

now published four of his titles, and

‘While the Gods Were Sleeping’, which

had never before appeared in English,

is my personal favourite. It combines

Mortier’s elegant style

and incisive observations

with an absorbing and

compelling plot.

We released the hardback

edition of ‘While the Gods

Were Sleeping’ in 2014

to a wonderful critical

reception, and so we’re

really excited about the paperback

publication in 2015.

Erwin Mortier’s highly literary writing,

in its sophistication and extraordinary

evocation of both memories and the

act of remembering, reminds us of

many great writers from the past –

but, among contemporary authors, he

is truly unique.’

ORIGINAL TITLE Godenslaap (2008, De Bezige Bij, 334 pages)PRIZES AKO Literature Prize, nomination Independent Foreign Fiction PrizeTRANSLATIONS English (Pushkin Press, 2014), German (DuMont, 2010), French (Fayard, 2010), Croatian (Fraktura, 2015), Spanish (Acantilado, 2012) RIGHTS Marijke Nagtegaal, Uta Matten - [email protected], [email protected]

‘Erwin Mortier has an uncanny

ability to put the unsayable

into words’

© L

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Bla

ncqu

aert

22 Peter Terrin THE GUARD

The Guard PETER TERRIN‘The Guard’ is set largely in the underground car park of a luxurious block of flats.

Two guards, Harry and Michel, are responsible for the residents’ safety. They are

never relieved, only now and again someone delivers new supplies. Their suspicions

that the outside world has been scourged by a terrible disaster or war are reinforced

as one by one the residents flee the building. Entirely isolated and living in austere

conditions, they continue unabated to fulfil their task.

When a third guard turns up unexpectedly, their perception of reality explodes and

paranoia takes over. Harry turns to torturing the guard, one of their own, in a quest

for the truth. When he and Michel make their way into the weird building above, they

lose sight of each other. A tragedy takes place. Lost and starving, Michel accidentally

discovers the last remaining resident, a stoic, Steve Jobs-like figure surrounded by

computers.

Terrin tells a strongly allegorical story of 21st century society. It is not only an

enthralling psychological novel; it is also a love story, encompassing oppressiveness,

emotion and explicit sensuality.

Peter Terrin (1968) was twenty-two years of age when he saw the light in a hotel room in London, during a reading of ‘The Darkroom of Damocles’ by the Dutch writer W.F. Hermans. Terrin gave up his job as a marble salesman and picked up his pen. He was home.His debut came in 1998 with a collection of stories entitled ‘The Code’, but it was his third novel, ‘The Guard’, that was to be his real breakthrough. It was awarded the 2010 European Union Prize for Literature and was lauded as a ‘sensual novel of ideas, an oppressive allegory on 21st century society.’ Terrin’s work is regularly linked to renowned predecessors such as Hermans, Kafka, Bordewijk, and Carver.In addition to ‘The Guard’, Terrin’s masterful and heart-rending ‘Post Mortem’ (2012) has attracted praise and awards (e.g. the AKO Literature Prize). The book is about fact and fiction, turning around the author’s four year old daughter who has suffered a stroke.

‘OUTSTANDING WRITING’JEAN MATTERN, publisher Gallimard (France)

‘We heard about ‘The Guard’ both

from Terrin’s publisher at the time,

De Arbeiderspers, and the Flemish

Literature Fund, more or

less simultaneously.

We were immediately

intrigued by Terrin’s

writing, his very

special tone, but also

by the unconventional

story line, or plot. The

combination of both

turns ‘The Guard’ into a

unique novel that struck

us on account of its

originality.

Paralleling a very efficient narrative

that transforms the book into a page-

turner, Terrin develops an underlying

reflection about our deepest fears,

about control, and about what our

societies might become.

The book fits in very well at Gallimard

because the writing is outstanding,

and ‘The Guard’ is a truly remarkable

novel. Terrin has a

unique voice and it is

difficult to compare him

to other writers. ‘The

Guard’, however, made

me think of Beckett.

‘Le guardien’ appeared

in 2013. If our records

are correct, the last

Flemish writer published

by Gallimard was Hugo

Claus in 1969. But there

won’t be another gap of

so many years again: the next Flemish

writer to be published by Gallimard

will be Stefan Hertmans, in October

2015.’

ORIGINAL TITLE De bewaker (2009, De Arbeiderspers, republished in 2014 by De Bezige Bij, 256 pages)PRIZES European Union Prize for Literature 2010TRANSLATIONS English (MacLehose, UK, 2013 / Quercus, USA, 2014), French (Gallimard, 2013), Bulgarian (Canetti, 2012), Catalan (Raig Verd, 2014), Croatian (Fraktura, 2013), Czech (Dauphin, 2012), Danish (Turbine, 2013), Hebrew (Carmel, 2012), Hungarian (Göncöl, 2013), Macedonian (Lamina), Rumanian (IBU), Serbian (Zavet, 2012), Slovenian (Modrijan, 2012), Spanish (Rayo Verde, 2014)RIGHTS Marijke Nagtegaal, Uta Matten - [email protected], [email protected]

‘An underlying reflection about our

deepest fears, about control,

and about what our

societies might become’

© M

arco

Mer

tens

SPEECHLESS Tom Lanoye 23

SpeechlessTOM LANOYEAfter a stroke, the author’s mother suffers from aphasia and behavioural problems

and never recovers sufficiently to be able to live at home. New attacks make her

entirely dependent on nursing help. Her son is deeply touched by her loss of speech,

which – as an amateur actress – had been so dear to her, and his impotent anger

makes his story at times a ‘tirade of curses’. In compensation – and as a grateful and

moving homage – he reconstructs her life in the abundance of language that used

to be hers.

This is an ‘unadorned account’, an informal, honest testimony of a mother by her

son, in which much can be read in what is left unspoken: good nature, gratitude, en-

dearment, closeness. At the same time, Tom Lanoye reflects on the actual function

of writing and the vital importance of language in these circumstances. ‘Speechless’

is about a personal experience recognisable to everyone, woven into a lively fresco

of a generation, a period, a lifestyle, masterful in its popular realism and the richness

of its language.

The evolution of Tom Lanoye (1958) might be described as follows: from ‘A Butcher’s Son with Specs’ (debut, 1985), to first ever literary yuppie, to parody poet and performer, to podium tiger, literary jukebox, influential media figure, and one of the most read authors in the Dutch language. Lanoye is a literary one-man business, a trademark. His theatre work (25 plays), prose (8 novels, 2 story collections, 2 novellas), columns (critical work and essays: 10), poetry (7 collections) and solo theatre shows (10) can only be described as exceptional. His breakthrough came with the masterful ‘Monster Trilogy’ (Belgian family saga), and he reset the boundaries in the theatre world with ‘To War’ (1997), his adaptation of Shakespeare’s history plays.‘Speechless’ was pure dynamite. Lanoye was highly extolled for this and earlier work, but in 2007 and 2013 he was honoured for his entire oeuvre. The 2013 C. Huyghens Prize jury summed up the collected work of Lanoye in a single word: ‘breathtaking’.

‘THE CALIBRE OF HUGO CLAUS’COLETTE LAMBRICHS,

‘I’m proud of the fact that Éditions de

la Différence was the first publisher

to bring out Tom Lanoye’s novels in

French. When Kristien Hemmerechts

was visiting Paris in

1999 to promote the

French translation of her

‘Without Boundaries’,

she spoke to me about

his work for the first

time. Ten years later

I decided to publish

several of Lanoye’s

books.

Hugo Claus had just died, and Jean-

Luc Outers, head of Promotion des

Lettres, told me that Lanoye’s oeuvre

was of the same quality as that of

Claus, whose ‘The Sorrow of Belgium’

is and remains, in my mind at least,

one of the greatest novels of the 20th

century. Alain Van Crugten was Claus’s

translator, he was also to become

Lanoye’s translator.

We decided to start with ‘Speechless’,

because it’s life itself,

a mixture of tragedy

and irresistible humour.

French-speaking Belgium

was immediately taken

by the book. When

the public read it they

realised that the Flemish

weren’t so different

after all, although

politics would have had them believe

otherwise. Together we laughed and

cried and revelled in the scenes that

reminded us so much of our own

families and our own stories. Death is

without nationality.’

ORIGINAL TITLE Sprakeloos (2009, Prometheus, 360 pages)PRIZES Golden Owl Reader’s Prize, shortlisted Libris Literature PrizeTRANSLATIONS English (World Editions, 2016), French (Éditions de la Différence, 2011) Afrikaans (Protea, 2011), Danish (Turbine, 2011)RIGHTS Eric Visser (World Editions) – [email protected]

‘Speechless’ is life itself: a mixture of tragedy and irresistible humour’

© S

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publisher Éditions de la Différence (France)

24 Yves Petry THE VIRGIN MARINO

The Virgin Marino YVES PETRY‘The Virgin Marino’ is Petry’s most characteristic and ambitious novel so far. He was

inspired by a notorious murder case in Germany in which a man was castrated, killed

and eaten by his friend at his own request. Petry does not reconstruct the case,

instead his novel seeks a possible explanation for what might possess someone to

do such a thing.

The culprit, Marino, is a dull technology nerd who has a paralyzing bond with his

mother. Bruno, the man who makes the request, is a literature lecturer who gave

up his job out of contempt for the academic world. The two fail to establish contact

with others and regard carrying out their cannibalistic plan as a unique opportunity

to intensify their relationship.

Petry’s power lies in a combination of extremely precise, carefully considered for-

mulations and astounding stylistic elegance. His prose is given a special flavour by

its ironic undertone and regularly embellished by dashes of misanthropy and gal-

lows humour, all oddly interlaced with spiritual seriousness, melancholy and even

tenderness.

In his sixth year at secondary school, Yves Petry (1967) read texts by Plato who described geometry as ‘the royal road to wisdom’. He decided to study mathematics at university, but he found little poetry in it. After two years he opted for philosophy.An abrupt loss of meaning is likewise evident in (all) his novels (alongside a hint of mathematics and a hint of philosophy). His narrative flair was evident from the outset in his debut ‘The Year of the Man’ (1999), after which his novels were only to become more and more convincing. He was awarded the BNG Literature Prize for ‘The Straggler’ (2006). His phenomenal, layered and disconcerting novel ‘The Virgin Marino’ attracted a large readership. His ‘Love So to Speak’ appeared in January 2015, a lucid book about a writer in a love triangle, about love and resentment.

‘SUPERIOR WRITING, DARING, INTENSE AND DRIVEN’VICTOR SCHIFERLI,

‘I discovered Petry with the

publication of his first novel

‘The Year of the Man’,

which immediately drew

our attention and was

included in that year’s

list of ‘Ten Books from

Holland and Flanders’.

I was involved in editing

two of his books: ‘The

Last Words of Leo

Wekeman’ (2003) and

‘The Straggler’ (2006),

both a serious pleasure.

‘The Virgin Marino’

represents superior

writing, daring, intense and driven,

and Yves comes up to the mark at

every turn. I noticed that many were

inclined to baulk at the topic of the

book, but I was quick to remind

them that ‘The Virgin Marino’ didn’t

set out to glorify cannibalism, just as

Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’ wasn’t intended to

promote paedophilia.

Petry – cleverly in my

opinion – opts for the

perspective of the dead

man, and the merciless

dissection of modern

western society that

follows is equally sharp.

Literary style, black

humour, a wealth of

ideas, and the ability to

tell an ingenious story in

an uncommonly natural

way typify Petry’s

writing.

‘The Virgin Marino’ is one of a kind –

I know of no other novel in which a

voluntary victim of cannibalism gets

to have his say after death and to

captivate the reader in such a highly

credible manner.’

ORIGINAL TITLE De maagd Marino (2010, De Bezige Bij, 284 pages)PRIZES Libris Literature Prize 2011, Inktaap 2012TRANSLATIONS German (Luftschaft, 2016) RIGHTS Marijke Nagtegaal, Uta Matten - [email protected], [email protected]

‘Literary style, black humour,

a wealth of ideas, and the ability to tell an ingenious story in an

uncommonly natural way’

© S

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Petry’s former editor, now Fiction Adviserat the Dutch Foundation for Literature

WAR AND TURPENTINE Stefan Hertmans 25

War and TurpentineSTEFAN HERTMANSJust 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. The life of his grandfather turned out to be

marked by his impoverished childhood in late nineteenth century Ghent, by horrible

experiences as a soldier at the front during the First World War and by his great love

who died young; he spent the rest of his life turning his grief into silent paintings.

In an attempt to fathom that life, Hertmans wrote down his memories of his

grandfather. He quotes from his diaries and looks at his paintings. Hertmans tells

the story with an imagination that only great writers possess, and does it in a form

that leaves an indelible impression. ‘War and Turpentine’ is a gripping search for a

life that paralleled the tragedy of a century, and is a posthumous, almost mythical

attempt to offer that life a voice at last.

Stefan Hertmans’ (1951) biography reads like a bildungsroman: from teacher to jazz musician to professor and writer’s writer to major European success. While Hertmans’ postmodern novels, (cultural-political) essays, poetry and theatre work had attracted a faithful but limited readership, his breakthrough came in his 62nd year with ‘War and Turpentine’. While certainly not his first awards, this ‘later masterpiece and immediate classic’ attracted two major prizes and as many nominations. The German publisher Hanser was the first to purchase foreign rights, and from then on the foreign sluices were open. ‘Return to Merelbeke’ (1994) demands to be (re)discovered. Although the author describes ‘Merelbeke’ as a ‘parody on roots-thinking in Flemish literature’, it is and remains a unique and magnificent search for lost time.Top Danish author Jens Christian Grøndahl’s statement about Hertmans’ most recent work speaks for itself: ‘A European masterpiece of a calibre you no longer thought was possible’.

‘A QUINTESSENTIALLY EUROPEAN BOOK’KARSTEN KREDEL, publisher Hanser Berlin (Germany)

‘We are very proud to be publishing

Stefan Hertmans’ ‘War and Turpentine’.

We are constantly trying to find the

most interesting voices in fiction and

nonfiction, and he is one

of the strongest voices in

contemporary European

literature.

I heard about

‘War and Turpentine’

from Hertmans’ publisher

De Bezige Bij, and it

was one of the books

everybody was talking

about before and during

the Frankfurt Book Fair

of 2013.

It is a quintessentially European book.

It touches on common (though painful

and at the times highly divisive)

experiences, and it reflects how we are

dealing with our respective histories –

which, for many of us, is inextricably

intertwined with our families’ stories.

This novel is a quest for meaning

that is both personal and collective,

specific and universal. It is also a

‘Künstlerroman’, a family

saga, a story of love

and intergenerational

inheritance as well as

a reflection on how we

deal with our past. It

is an amazing piece of

literature, reflective,

intellectual and imbued

with a deep sense of

humanity.

As with all great authors,

Stefan Hertmans’

voice is highly original. Much like

Sebald, Hertmans asks questions

about the meaning of history, and

the exploration of our own historical

context, for us as human beings.’

ORIGINAL TITLE Oorlog en terpentijn (2013, De Bezige Bij, 334 pages)PRIZES Flemish Culture Prize for Prose, AKO Literature Prize, Golden Book Owl Reader’s Prize, shortli-sted for the Libris Literature Prize and the Golden Book OwlTRANSLATIONS German (Hanser Berlin, 2014), French (Gallimard, 2015), English (Harvill Secker, UK / Knopf, USA / Text, Australia-New Zealand), Afrikaans (Protea, 2016), Croatian (Fraktura, 2016), Danish (People’s Press, 2014), Hungarian (Európa), Italian (Marsilio, 2015), Japanese (Shoraisha, 2016), Norwegian (Pax, 2014), Polish (Marginesy), Serbian (Heliks, 2014), Slovenian (Beletrina, 2015), Swedish (Norstedts, 2015)RIGHTS Marijke Nagtegaal, Uta Matten - [email protected], [email protected]

‘Anamazing piece of literature,

reflective, intellectual and imbued with a deep

sense of humanity’

©M

ichi

el H

endr

ickx

Colophon

The Flemish Literature Fund, an autonomous government institution, highlights the works of Flemish authors and supports their

publication by means of translation and travel grants. All information can be found on our website.

For more information on the translations on Flemish and Dutch literature, check the online translations database of the Flemish

Literature Fund and the Dutch Foundation for Literature: www.letterenfonds.nl/en/authors-and-translators.

Flemish Literature Fund

Generaal van Merlenstraat 30

2600 Antwerp (BELGIUM)

T +32 (0)3 270 31 61

[email protected]

www.flemishliterature.be

For further information

Elise Vanoosthuyse – grants manager fiction

T +32 3 270 31 74

E [email protected]

Michiel Scharpé – grants manager fiction

T +32 3 270 31 70

E [email protected]

Text

Martine Cuyt

Editing

Els Aerts, Brian Doyle, Michiel Scharpé, Elise Vanoosthuyse

Translation

Brian Doyle

Lay-out

Katrien Claes, De vlindervloer

Printing

Drukkerij Debie

Copyright

© Flemish Literature Fund – none of these texts or images can be copied nor made public by means of (digital) print, copy,

internet or in any other way without prior consent from the Flemish Literature Fund.

We have tried to contact all holders of copyright in assembling this publication. Should we have unrightfully incorporated any texts

or images, then we urge the copyright holders to come forward and contact us.

28 Stefan hartmans THE MAN WHO FOUND

Flemish Literature FundGeneraal Van Merlenstraat 30B-2600 Antwerp

T +32 3 270 31 61F +32 3 270 31 60E [email protected]

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