bookshelf essentials 2
DESCRIPTION
In the second edition of ‘Bookshelf Essentials’, the FLF zooms in on contemporary classics, after the 'classic' classics we introduced before.TRANSCRIPT
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
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.
© C
hris
van
Hou
ts
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’
© S
tef
Vers
traa
ten
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’
© d
eBur
en
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’
© K
eke
Keuk
elaa
r
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
aert
t
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
ieve
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
teph
an V
anfle
tere
n
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
teph
an V
anfle
tere
n
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.
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Generaal van Merlenstraat 30
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T +32 (0)3 270 31 61
www.flemishliterature.be
For further information
Elise Vanoosthuyse – grants manager fiction
T +32 3 270 31 74
Michiel Scharpé – grants manager fiction
T +32 3 270 31 70
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
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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
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28 Stefan hartmans THE MAN WHO FOUND
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