www.debezigebijantwerpen.be

De uitgeverij Meulenhoff/Manteau heet vandaag De Bezige Bij Antwerpen, maar staat nog steeds garant voor boeken over de wereld van vandaag, in alle genres en met een brede kijk op de geschiedenis. Bezoek de actuele blog van De Bezige Bij Antwerpen!

The publishing house Meulenhoff/Manteau has changed its name to De Bezige Bij Antwerpen, but is still commited to creating books about today's world, in all genres and with a wide scoop on history. Visit the up-to-date blog of De Bezige Bij Antwerpen!

Paul Bogaert nominated for the VSB Poetry Prize

The collection de Slalom soft, by Paul Bogaert, has been nominated for the VSB Poetry Prize, the most important poetry award in the Dutch-speaking countries. The prize will be awarded on 26 January 2011 in Utrecht.

de Slalom soft is a modern tragedy, written in free verse. Paul Bogaert places the modern working man under an inconveniently sharp fluorescent lamp light. In lyrical and sober poems, he sketches the experience of a tropical swimming paradise and the longing for success, the desire for ecstasy and the inevitable disappointment of its visitor.

Chika Unigwe nominated for the 2011 IMPAC Award

Chika Unigwe's On Black Sisters' Street has been nominated for the International IMPAC DUBLIN Literature Award 2010.


This award is special for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the award of 100.000 euros. The nominations come from libraries rather than professional judges. Those libraries span the globe. And the award is open to (almost, there is a time restriction) all novels of high literary merit written in the English language, or written in any other language and published in English translation. The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is the largest and most international prize of its kind. This year's edition features 162 novels. The shortlist will be made public on 12th April 2011 and the Lord Mayor of Dublin will announce the winner on 15th June. In 2010 Gerbrand Bakker won the award with his acclaimed novel The twin.


The English edition of On Black Sisters' Street is published by Vintage (the Dutch edition was published by Meulenhoff/Manteau in 2007). On Black Sisters' Street was hailed by The Guardian and The Dailiy Telegraph as one of this years' best novels.


Chika Unigwe's new novel, Nachtdanser (Night Dancer), will be released in January 2011. Night Dancer is set in Nigeria, a fascinating country and one of the most rapidly growing economies in the world. Tradition and progress stand face to face. All those contradictions meet in the big city of Enugu. The young girl, Mma, an orphan, is trying to make her way through life, which has not been merciful with her.

F. Bordewijk Award for De Bloemen (The Flowers) by Koen Peeters

The F. Bordewijk Award 2010 goes to Koen Peeters for De Bloemen (The Flowers). The jury praises the novel that ‘carefully balances between restrained melancholy and sharp observations’. Earlier, De Bloemen has been longlisted for the AKO Literature Prize, to be awarded on Monday 8 November.

The F. Bordewijk Award is one of the most prestigious Dutch prose awards. It is awarded annually in The Hague by the Jan Campert foundation. Among others, Arnon Grunberg, Frans Kellendonk and Tommy Wieringa were honoured with the prize. Paul Verhaeghen received the award in 2005.

In De Bloemen, Koen Peeters tells us how the lives of grandfathers, fathers and sons can intertwine. He shows us how this world is made by man, and at the same time how little man is makeable himself.

Somewhere around the year 1900. Louis, the youngest member of a farm family is ten years old. He witnesses how his very best friend, a pig, is slaughtered. He instantly decides to sell butter and eggs when he grows up. Which he later does. Louis dreams of starting a big business, but that plan never happens. His son, René, is an exemplary student. He joins the youth movement and finally chooses the path of politics. After a political meeting, he is attacked and badly injured... The son of the third generation, the narrator of this story, starts looking for the traces his forefathers left behind. With De Bloemen, Koen Peeters reinvents the family novel. The result is a subtle as well as a moving story, where nostalgia is carried by the endearing sensitivity and alert intelligence of the writer.

Koen Peeters (1959) was awarded with the Nieuwe-Yang prize for his debut Conversaties met K. (Conversations with K.). Later, he wrote a.o. Bezoek onze kelders (Visit our cellars), De postbode (The postman) (NCR Prize), Het is niet ernstig, mon amour (It’s not serious, my love) (Literature Award of the Province of Flemish Brabant), Acacialaan (Acacia avenue) (longlist AKO Literature Prize), Mijnheer Sjamaan (Mr. Shaman) and the collection of poems Fijne motoriek (Fine motor skills). His highly acclaimed Grote Europese Roman (Great European Novel) was shortlisted for the Libris Literature Prize 2008 and was translated a.o. into Italian, Hungarian and Romanian. Koen Peeters is an editor with the literature magazine Dietsche Warande & Belfort.

Klett-Cotta acquired the e-book rights of Chika Unigwe’s Fata Morgana

In September publishing house Klett-Cotta released Schwarze Schwestern, the German translation of Chika Unigwe’s Fata Morgana. Last week Klett-Cotta also acquired the e-book rights of this moving story of four African women in the red-light-district of Antwerp.


More information on www.klett-cotta.de/autoren

Antwerp Book Fair - debate on literature and interculturality

Frankfurt 2010

You'll find us at the fair in Hall 6 - B 958.

Please download our foreign rights catalogues on our site.