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Belgium

The covers of the five books featured in the Watchlist

The Watchlist: September 2022

By Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll recommends new and exciting books in translation from Sudan, Belgium, Haiti, France, and South Korea.

Juan Manuel’s Shadow

By Robert Marcuse

I follow him everywhere and never lose sight of him; he rarely notices me.

Translated from Spanish by Cristina Lambert

Joyful, Painful, Surreal: Life As a Parent

By Karen M. Phillips

The intensity of the parent-child relationship, with its high emotional stakes, life-and-death responsibility, and inescapable physical proximity, makes for powerful stories.

“Her Entire Existence Was an Emergency”: Human Relationships in Flemish Literature

By Michele Hutchison

Flemish literature at its best is linguistically pyrotechnic, daring, and original.

From “Cinderella”

By Michael Bijnens

She needed the adrenaline to keep her upright.

Translated from Dutch by Brian Doyle

What You’ve Given Up Hoping for Counts Twice as Much, She’d Discovered

By Griet Op de Beeck

In general Kathleen didn’t look at the contents of toilet bowls, but in this case it didn’t take much to notice the colossus.

Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison

Multilingual

Plastic Wrap

If she can’t see it, if it isn’t in the room, it doesn’t exist.

Translated from Dutch by David Doherty

Forty-four Years Later

By Michaël Olbrechts

I'm going to take you to the interbellum period, to 1936.

Translated by Michele Hutchison

The Queer Issue V: Impressions from a Passing Train

By Rohan Kamicheril

The appeal of the Queer Issue is in seeing that great ambition writ small, in discovering the swarm of details and experience that cohere into the big picture of world writing.

from “My Body Laid Bare”

By Stéphane Lambert

My face was more akin to Florentine portraits of androgynous ephebes than to paintings of ancient heroes.

Translated from French by Paul Curtis Daw

The Ark

By André-Marcel Adamek

Crates of poultry are piling up in my yard, my attic’s an aviary, my cellar writhes with reptiles

Translated from French by Edward Gauvin

Prague

By Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Let’s not talk about Prague.

Translated from French by John Lambert

Three Fables

By Paul Verhaeghen

She didn't do anything. She just sat. And there it was, then, fully formed.

Translated from Dutch by the author

The East

Zikiya's Rwanda was a mythical, pre-colonial state with customs his ancestors had brought into the mountains along with their herds, where they'd become hopelessly outdated over the years.

Translated from Dutch by Liz Waters

From “Self-Portrait Abroad”

By Jean-Philippe Toussaint

I stepped into the circle and, without thinking, shot . . .

Translated from French by Edward Gauvin