Famous at home. Unknown in English.

Libris 2026 · Shortlist

Het gezoem van bijna alles

AITitle translated by AI:“The Hum of Almost Everything”

Coco Schrijber · 64 when first published

Novel · 320 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Cato Goudschenker, a one-eyed philosophy professor turned postwoman on a Mediterranean island, drinks too much and thinks about everything. Years after losing her two little boys in an accident, she starts writing letters to strangers who share her surname.

Libris 2026 · Shortlist

Als de dieren

AITitle translated by AI:“Like the Animals”

Lieselot Mariën

Novel · 311 pages

AIAI-generated summary:After giving birth, a woman sinks into depression and slowly loses her way. Looking back, she searches for words for the hopelessness, dread, shame and emptiness that took hold of her.

Libris 2026 · Shortlist

Surrender on Demand

Overgave op commando

Nadia de Vries · 34 when first published

Novel · 159 pages · Satire, Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Schelvis is raised in a seaside village under the fumes of a steelworks, where young people can expect a job at the plant or in a warehouse. Wanting to give orders rather than take them, Schelvis tries to get away.

Libris 2026 · Shortlist

De jaknikker

Peter Buwalda · 54 when first published

Novel · 688 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:Ludwig Smit becomes the right-hand man of oil chief Johan Tromp, who has no idea Ludwig is his son. Tromp sends him to spy on Isabelle Orthel, the journalist who once drew secrets out of him and now uses them against him.

Libris 2026 · Shortlist

Nog lang geen winter

AITitle translated by AI:“Winter Is a Long Way Off”

Peter Terrin · 57 when first published

Novel · 222 pages · Family, Speculative

AIAI-generated summary:On the eve of a trip to Italy, where he is to scatter his former partner's remains, Simon, a successful photographer, is paid a fortune out of the blue and learns he may be stuck in a parallel version of his life.

Libris 2025 · Shortlist

Rouwdouwers

AITitle translated by AI:“Roughnecks”

Falun Ellie Koos · 32 when first published

Novel · 235 pages · Family, Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Ada has quit art school and gone to Galicia to cut timber for a man she cannot talk to. Out there, memories of her younger brother and their hard upbringing in their father's mobile home keep returning.

Libris 2025 · Shortlist

De kroon met twee pieken

AITitle translated by AI:“The Crown with Two Points”

Guido van Heulendonk · 73 when first published

Novel · 276 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:Werner Vrysoone, a local civil servant, widower and fan of early Fleetwood Mac, raises two daughters, only one of them his own. As friction grows between the girls, he tries to remain a fair and caring father.

Libris 2025 · Shortlist

Hogere machten

AITitle translated by AI:“Higher Powers”

Joost de Vries · 41 when first published

Novel · 319 pages · Love, Historical

AIAI-generated summary:In the 1930s James Welmoed, a calculating official with social ambitions, meets the lively Elisabeth van Elzenburg, who writes novels set in the past. The two are utterly unalike, yet neither can get the other out of their mind.

Libris 2025 · Shortlist

In het oog

AITitle translated by AI:“In the Eye”

Marijke Schermer · 49 when first published

Novel · 191 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:Nicola, a microbiologist who prefers to observe the world from behind her microscope, is suddenly left by her girlfriend just as the money for her work on an unusual bacterium dries up.

Libris 2025 · Shortlist

Man maakt stuk

AITitle translated by AI:“Man Breaks Things”

Maurits de Bruijn · 40 when first published

Novel · 269 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Night after night a gang of boys hangs around beneath the window of David, an artist, smoking, talking and taking up space. When the neighbours want the nuisance stopped, he refuses to side with them, unsure what really drives him.

Libris 2024 · Shortlist

De onbedoelden

AITitle translated by AI:“The Unintended”

Cobi van Baars

Novel · 221 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:At twenty-one, Aaf learns that soon after birth she was separated from her birth mother and from a twin sister she never knew she had. Raised by kind adoptive parents, she sets out to find her.

Libris 2024 · Shortlist

Gebied 19

AITitle translated by AI:“Area 19”

Esther Gerritsen · 51 when first published

Novel · 314 pages · Speculative

AIAI-generated summary:The day after his wedding Tomas wakes alone. Half of humanity, his own family included, has moved to another planet, and he seems to be the only one who finds it strange.

Libris 2024 · Shortlist

De onzichtbaren

AITitle translated by AI:“The Invisible Ones”

Frank Nellen · 41 when first published

Novel · 253 pages · Politics, Historical

AIAI-generated summary:Kyiv, the late 1980s. When his childhood friend Pavel vanishes after a fiery speech declaring socialism dead, Dani, a dishwasher in a luxury hotel, sets out to find him.

Libris 2024 · Shortlist

Tosca

Maud Vanhauwaert · 39 when first published

Novel

AIAI-generated summary:A translator and lecturer of forty-three writes to her editor to explain why she abandoned her own work for a year to devote herself to Aline, a deeply troubled girl of seventeen who seems to long for death.

Libris 2024 · Shortlist

Listen

Luister

Sacha Bronwasser · 55 when first published

Novel · 240 pages · Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:In 1989 Marie, a young Dutch woman, moves to Paris to look after the children of a wealthy French family whose father has an odd psychic affliction. A dark episode from her student days lies behind her.

Libris 2023 · Shortlist

Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost

Waarachtige beschrijvingen uit de permafrost

Donald Niedekker · 59 when first published

Novel · 196 pages · Historical

AIAI-generated summary:A poet who died on Nova Zembla in 1597, during Willem Barentsz's expedition, wakes in his icy grave 425 years later, as the warming climate thaws the permafrost, and at last delivers his account.

Libris 2023 · Shortlist

Man zonder rijbewijs

AITitle translated by AI:“Man Without a Driving Licence”

Oek de Jong · 70 when first published

Nonfiction · 214 pages

AIAI-generated summary:A writer who always refused to drive takes lessons late in life in Amsterdam, and asking himself why he left it so long leads him back to his parents and to what made him the person he is.

Libris 2023 · Shortlist

De gebeurtenis

AITitle translated by AI:“The Event”

Peter Terrin · 54 when first published

Novel · 220 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:A celebrated author dies and leaves his literary estate to his former secretary rather than his widow, and scientists choose her to communicate with his uploaded mind.

Libris 2023 · Shortlist

Tussentijds

AITitle translated by AI:“In the Meantime”

Peter Zantingh · 39 when first published

Novel · 175 pages · Family, Nature

AIAI-generated summary:Robin, a young father, takes the train with Mats, his son of two, to join his wife Tess, who is working in southern Germany, across a country recently struck by floods.

Libris 2023 · Shortlist

Overal zit mens

AITitle translated by AI:“Humans Everywhere”

Yves Petry · 55 when first published

Novel · 250 pages · Nature, Crime

AIAI-generated summary:Kasper Kind, a forest warden sick at heart over what humans have done to nature and scornful of herd thinking, plots the murder of a television intellectual with whom he shares a past.

Libris 2022 · Shortlist

De Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company

AITitle translated by AI:“The Mitsukoshi Comfort Baby Company”

Auke Hulst · 46 when first published

Novel · 606 pages · Speculative

AIAI-generated summary:Grieving the child an abortion took from him, a novelist who writes about the future buys, in 2032, an artificial daughter: a self-aware machine built as a little girl of seven who will stay that age forever.

Libris 2022 · Shortlist

De atlas van overal

AITitle translated by AI:“The Atlas of Everywhere”

Deniz Kuypers

Novel · 369 pages · Family, Migration, Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:A son grows up in Hengelo beside a Turkish father who sits angry and unapproachable on the sofa and never teaches his children Turkish. Years later, a father himself in San Francisco, he sets out to understand him.

Libris 2022 · Shortlist

Aleksandra

Lisa Weeda · 32 when first published

Novel · 347 pages · Family, War, Historical

AIAI-generated summary:Sent by her aged grandmother Aleksandra, a young woman travels to Ukraine to find the grave of Kolja, a relative who disappeared. After tricking the soldiers at the front line, she falls through time into the Palace of the Soviets.

Libris 2022 · Shortlist

Willem die Madoc maakte

AITitle translated by AI:“Willem Who Made Madoc”

Nico Dros · 65 when first published

Novel · 584 pages · Historical

AIAI-generated summary:A professor finds a medieval manuscript, and from it the life of Willem unfolds: a toddler rescued from the sea who becomes a shrewd free thinker in an age of cloisters, knights and religious fanaticism.

Libris 2022 · Shortlist

Onze kinderen

AITitle translated by AI:“Our Children”

Renée van Marissing

Novel · 166 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:Mia's father has just died, a man she has few good memories of, while her wife Sally's pregnancy advances. Grieving all the same, Mia wonders how to set a good example for a child when she never had one.

Libris 2021 · Shortlist

De onbevlekte

AITitle translated by AI:“The Immaculate One”

Erwin Mortier · 55 when first published

Novel · 141 pages · Family, War, Historical

AIAI-generated summary:In the Flemish countryside, the family of Marcel, who made a bitter choice in the Second World War and died on the Eastern Front, speak of his fate and of how it has marked them down the generations.

Libris 2021 · Shortlist

We Are Light

Wij zijn licht

Gerda Blees · 35 when first published

Novel · 240 pages · Crime

AIAI-generated summary:A woman lies starved to death in the living room of a commune whose members tried to live on light and air. The house, the night, the bread they refused and other things tell what happened.

Libris 2021 · Shortlist

My Heavenly Favorite

Mijn lieve gunsteling

Lucas Rijneveld · 29 when first published

Novel · 344 pages

AIAI-generated summary:During one sweltering summer in the countryside, a vet in his late forties and the fourteen-year-old girl whose father's cows he treats are drawn to each other. He tells the story, speaking to her.

Libris 2021 · Shortlist

De Saamhorigheidsgroep

AITitle translated by AI:“The Solidarity Group”

Merijn de Boer · 38 when first published

Novel · 395 pages · Politics

AIAI-generated summary:In 2018, the senior diplomat Bernhard Wekman has a visitor in New York who takes him back to the 1980s, when a circle of left-wing idealists near Haarlem set out to save the world.

Libris 2021 · Shortlist

Confrontations

Confrontaties

Simone Atangana Bekono · 29 when first published

Novel · 223 pages · Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Sixteen-year-old Salomé is held in a juvenile prison for badly beating two classmates who had long tormented her with racist abuse. She has no regrets, and tries to work out how it came to this.

Libris 2020 · Shortlist

Falling is Like Flying

Vallen is als vliegen

Manon Uphoff · 57 when first published

Novel · 192 pages · Family, Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:When her sister, sixteen years older and once her stand-in mother, falls down a staircase and dies, starved and alone, a writer's fury ignites: she must finally tell what her family kept silent for decades.

Libris 2020 · Shortlist

Love, If That's What It Is

Liefde, als dat het is

Marijke Schermer · 44 when first published

Novel · 312 pages · Love, Family

AIAI-generated summary:After twenty-five years of marriage Terri walks out, with a lover and above all in search of herself. Her steady, kind husband David is left at home with their two teenage girls.

Libris 2020 · Shortlist

Zwarte schuur

AITitle translated by AI:“Black Barn”

Oek de Jong · 67 when first published

Novel · 489 pages · Coming of age, Love

AIAI-generated summary:At fifty-nine the painter Maris Coppoolse is about to see his work celebrated at the Stedelijk Museum when a magazine reveals what lies behind it: something he did at fourteen in a tarred barn in Zeeland.

Libris 2020 · Shortlist

Nachtouders

AITitle translated by AI:“Night Parents”

Saskia De Coster · 43 when first published

Novel · 374 pages · Family, Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:Saskia has a baby son with her partner Juli, but it was Juli who gave birth. Afraid she cannot love him enough, Saskia travels with them to the boy's donor father, who lives among hippies on an island near Canada.

Libris 2020 · Shortlist

De hoogstapelaar

AITitle translated by AI:“The Impostor”

Wessel te Gussinklo · 78 when first published

Novel · 371 pages · Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Seventeen-year-old Ewout wants above all to be somebody: a man people admire, fear and must reckon with. He studies every pose and gesture while drifting through town with friends he scorns but cannot do without.

Libris 2019 · Shortlist

Drift

AITitle translated by AI:“Urge”

Bregje Hofstede · 30 when first published

Novel · 397 pages · Autofiction, Love

AIAI-generated summary:On a winter night, after a violent quarrel, a young woman leaves the childhood sweetheart she married, taking only a backpack full of ten years of diaries.

Libris 2019 · Shortlist

De trooster

AITitle translated by AI:“The Comforter”

Esther Gerritsen · 46 when first published

Novel · 211 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Against the rules of his monastery, Jacob, its misshapen caretaker, takes charge of a jovial new guest who has come for reflection, or perhaps to atone for a crime.

Libris 2019 · Shortlist

Grand Hotel Europa

Grand Hotel Europa

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer · 50 when first published

Novel · 551 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:A writer moves into the illustrious but decaying Grand Hotel Europa to work out what went wrong with Clio, the art historian he fell for in Genoa and lived with in Venice.

Libris 2019 · Shortlist

De ommegang

AITitle translated by AI:“The Procession”

Jan van Aken · 57 when first published

Novel · 627 pages · Historical

AIAI-generated summary:From a dark dungeon, Isidorus, an orphan raised in an English monastery who became a healer and master builder, tells his life story to a cellmate he cannot see.

Libris 2019 · Shortlist

Het vloekhout

AITitle translated by AI:“The Cursed Wood”

Johan de Boose · 56 when first published

Novel · 213 pages · Historical, Satire

AIAI-generated summary:A piece of olive wood from Palestine, used for the crucifixion of the prophet Yeshua, turns out to be able to talk, and sets off on a journey through two thousand years of European history.

Libris 2018 · Shortlist

Aantekeningen over het verplaatsen van obelisken

AITitle translated by AI:“Notes on Moving Obelisks”

Arjen van Veelen · 37 when first published

Novel · 252 pages · Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:A young writer travels to Alexandria with the books of his friend Tomas, who died young, hoping to give them a place in the city's famous library and to find the tomb of Alexander the Great.

Libris 2018 · Shortlist

Peachez, een romance

AITitle translated by AI:“Peachez: A Romance”

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer · 49 when first published

Novel · 174 pages · Love, Satire

AIAI-generated summary:An ageing professor of Latin, planning a conference on Tertullian to crown his retirement, strikes up an email exchange with a woman who says she is Sarah Peachez, a Las Vegas barmaid and model.

Libris 2018 · Shortlist

In Search of a Name

En we noemen hem

Marjolijn van Heemstra · 36 when first published

Novel · 208 pages · Autofiction, Family, War

AIAI-generated summary:At eighteen Marjolijn promised to name her first son after a great-uncle the family calls a resistance hero; pregnant years later, she sets out to learn who he really was.

Libris 2018 · Shortlist

The Pelican

De pelikaan

Martin Michael Driessen · 63 when first published

Novel · 228 pages · Satire

AIAI-generated summary:In a drowsy Adriatic town in communist Yugoslavia, postman Andrej photographs Josip, who runs the cable railway up the hill, with his mistress, and starts to blackmail him.

Libris 2018 · Shortlist

The Blessed Rita

De heilige Rita

Tommy Wieringa · 50 when first published

Novel · 256 pages · Family, Migration

AIAI-generated summary:For almost fifty years Paul Krüzen has lived with his father on a ghostly old farm outside Mariënveen, a forgotten village on the German border; once his father cared for him, now he cares for his father.

Libris 2017 · Shortlist

Moedervlekken

AITitle translated by AI:“Birthmarks”

Arnon Grunberg · 45 when first published

Novel · 399 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:Otto Kadoke, a psychiatrist who keeps people with a death wish alive at a crisis centre, is overcome by love for one of the Nepalese carers looking after his frail old mother.

Libris 2017 · Shortlist

Will

Wil

Jeroen Olyslaegers · 49 when first published

Novel · 349 pages · War, Historical

AIAI-generated summary:In occupied Antwerp, Wilfried Wils, who sees himself as a poet in the making, has to get by as an auxiliary policeman while the hunt for the city's Jews goes on.

Libris 2017 · Shortlist

The Melting

Het smelt

Lize Spit · 28 when first published

Novel · 410 pages · Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Thirteen years after a scorching summer that spun out of control, Eva drives back to Bovenmeer, the small Flemish village where she grew up, with a block of ice in the boot.

Libris 2017 · Shortlist

Zachte riten

AITitle translated by AI:“Gentle Rites”

Marja Pruis · 57 when first published

Novel · 260 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Guusje Bouhuys, a poetry teacher who has put her life on hold, is shaken when a close friend is accused of plagiarism and another friend falls incurably ill.

Libris 2017 · Shortlist

Schuld

AITitle translated by AI:“Guilt”

Walter van den Berg · 46 when first published

Novel · 223 pages · Crime

AIAI-generated summary:In Amsterdam's tough Nieuw-West district, bright Kevin wipes stolen laptops clean for resale, calling up the cheaters whose videos he finds, until his father comes out of jail.

Libris 2016 · Shortlist

Alleen met de goden

AITitle translated by AI:“Alone with the Gods”

Alex Boogers · 45 when first published

Novel · 518 pages · Coming of age, Family

AIAI-generated summary:One evening eleven-year-old Aaron Bachman sees a man lying motionless in the doorway, while his father, fists clenched, phones the police to turn himself in.

Libris 2016 · Shortlist

Tench

Muidhond

Inge Schilperoord · 42 when first published

Novel · 187 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Released from a secure institution for lack of evidence, Jonathan moves in with his lonely old mother in a little house in the dunes, determined to become a better man.

Libris 2016 · Shortlist

De onervarenen

AITitle translated by AI:“The Inexperienced”

Joke van Leeuwen · 63 when first published

Novel · 237 pages · Historical, Migration

AIAI-generated summary:In 1847 a poor young couple, Odile and Koben, have to leave their farm and accept a settlement society's promise of a golden future on the other side of the ocean.

Libris 2016 · Shortlist

De onderwaterzwemmer

AITitle translated by AI:“The Underwater Swimmer”

P.F. Thomése · 57 when first published

Novel · 252 pages · War, Family

AIAI-generated summary:In the last year of the war, fourteen-year-old Tin van Heel loses his father while they swim across an icy river at night to reach liberated territory.

Libris 2016 · Shortlist

Als de winter voorbij is

AITitle translated by AI:“When Winter Is Over”

Thomas Verbogt · 63 when first published

Novel · 222 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Just turned sixty and about to move in with his girlfriend, Thomas clears out the flat where he has lived alone for fifteen years and looks back on the brief encounters that shaped his life.

Libris 2015 · Shortlist

Roxy

Roxy

Esther Gerritsen · 42 when first published

Novel · 192 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:Two police officers come to tell Roxy, twenty-seven, that her husband has died in a car crash with his young intern, both of them naked. She wants no comfort, only an enemy.

Libris 2015 · Shortlist

Godin, held

AITitle translated by AI:“Goddess, Hero”

Gustaaf Peek · 39 when first published

Novel · 274 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:Tessa, who becomes a writer, and Marius, who becomes a journalist, fall for each other at secondary school and never let go; for years their affair lives on in anonymous hotel rooms.

Libris 2015 · Shortlist

Teatro Olimpico

Kees 't Hart · 70 when first published

Novel · 221 pages · Satire

AIAI-generated summary:Two theatre makers from The Hague are invited to stage their experimental play about Rousseau at the famous Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, with little time and no money.

Libris 2015 · Shortlist

The Consequences

De consequenties

Niña Weijers · 27 when first published

Novel · 298 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Born nearly four months early and barely expected to live, Minnie Panis has become a celebrated conceptual artist who uses her own life as material, and is about to attempt her boldest experiment.

Libris 2015 · Shortlist

Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo

Peter Terrin · 46 when first published

Novel · 173 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Monaco, May 1968: moments before the Grand Prix, Jack Preston, a modest Lotus mechanic, pulls a young film star from a blaze in the pits and is badly burned.

Libris 2014 · Shortlist

De omwegen

AITitle translated by AI:“The Detours”

Jeroen Theunissen · 36 when first published

Novel · 377 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:The triplets Johan, Jonas and Joris, sons of a broken Flemish family, each go their own way: one becomes an accomplished scholar who is still miserable, one a ruthless millionaire, one an idealistic bohemian.

Libris 2014 · Shortlist

Roundhay, tuinscène

AITitle translated by AI:“Roundhay, Garden Scene”

Marente de Moor · 41 when first published

Novel · 336 pages · Historical

AIAI-generated summary:Valéry Barre, the forgotten inventor of moving pictures, takes the train from Dijon to Paris to say goodbye to a photographer friend before emigrating to America. Halfway, he leaves the train at a rural station and checks into an asylum.

Libris 2014 · Shortlist

Het verdwijnen van Robbert

AITitle translated by AI:“The Disappearance of Robbert”

Robbert Welagen · 32 when first published

Novel · 160 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Robbert, a young writer whose debut won a prize, decides to vanish without a trace. He prepares his disappearance carefully and ends up in northern Germany, doing simple work to make a living.

Libris 2014 · Shortlist

War and Turpentine

Oorlog en terpentijn

Stefan Hertmans · 62 when first published

Novel · 304 pages · War, Family, Historical

AIAI-generated summary:Before he died, Urbain Martien left his grandson two notebooks recording his life. Thirty years later the grandson, a writer, reconstructs it: a poor childhood in Ghent, the trenches of the First World War, a dream of painting.

Libris 2014 · Shortlist

Fortunate Slaves

Gelukkige slaven

Tom Lanoye · 55 when first published

Novel · 288 pages · Satire

AIAI-generated summary:Two Belgians who share the name Tony Hanssen try to get out of trouble on different continents, one in a South African game reserve, the other in a squeaky hotel bed in Buenos Aires.

Libris 2013 · Shortlist

The Man Without Illness

De man zonder ziekte

Arnon Grunberg · 41 when first published

Novel · 222 pages · Politics, Satire

AIAI-generated summary:Sam Ambani, a young Swiss architect with an Indian father, is hired to design an opera house for Baghdad. He believes buildings can make people happier, but in Iraq he is taken for a spy.

Libris 2013 · Shortlist

Euforie

AITitle translated by AI:“Euphoria”

Christiaan Weijts · 36 when first published

Novel · 400 pages · Politics

AIAI-generated summary:After a terrorist attack kills forty people in the centre of The Hague, the architect Johannes Vermeer, who helped in the rescue and thinks he recognised an old love among the victims, competes to design a memorial building.

Libris 2013 · Shortlist

Dinsdag

AITitle translated by AI:“Tuesday”

Elvis Peeters · 55 when first published

Novel · 170 pages · War

AIAI-generated summary:Over a single day, an old man who wants no one meddling in his life dodges the girl from social services and looks back on his past as a mercenary in the Belgian Congo and the two women he loved and cared for.

Libris 2013 · Shortlist

Craving

Dorst

Esther Gerritsen · 40 when first published

Novel · 192 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:Elisabeth, who never was much of a mother, tells her daughter Coco almost in passing that she has cancer and may die. Coco, whose studies and love life have stalled, decides she must stand by her.

Libris 2013 · Shortlist

Pier en oceaan

AITitle translated by AI:“Pier and Ocean”

Oek de Jong · 60 when first published

Novel · 803 pages · Coming of age, Family

AIAI-generated summary:Abel Roorda, a boy from Friesland born of a premarital pregnancy in a strict Reformed family, moves to Zeeland, where he goes through puberty while the stiff Netherlands of the 1950s and 1960s loosens up.

Libris 2012 · Shortlist

Gelukkig zijn we machteloos

AITitle translated by AI:“Luckily We Are Powerless”

Ivo Victoria · 40 when first published

Novel · 241 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:On a sweltering afternoon two families gather on a lawn in a Flemish town where teenage girls are said to keep vanishing. When fourteen-year-old Billie walks off and Uncle Lex follows her, suspicion is close at hand.

Libris 2012 · Shortlist

Ik, Hollywood

AITitle translated by AI:“I, Hollywood”

Jan Van Loy · 47 when first published

Novel · 639 pages · Historical

AIAI-generated summary:Louie Peters rises from orphan to movie tycoon. His life story carries the reader through the early years of the studios and the rise of Hollywood itself.

Libris 2012 · Shortlist

Naar de overkant van de nacht

AITitle translated by AI:“To the Other Side of the Night”

Jan van Mersbergen · 40 when first published

Novel · 175 pages

AIAI-generated summary:During one long carnival night in Venlo, Ralf, dressed as a ferryman, drinks his way through the town and keeps count on a calendar round his neck, while his thoughts return to Sara and her four children.

Libris 2012 · Shortlist

Bittere bloemen

AITitle translated by AI:“Bitter Flowers”

Jeroen Brouwers · 71 when first published

Novel · 285 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Julius J. Hammer, 81, once a professor, judge and famous author and now weakened by a stroke, is sent by his domineering daughter on a Mediterranean cruise. There he runs into a woman who once unsettled him in his writing class.

Libris 2012 · Shortlist

Het bloed in onze aderen

AITitle translated by AI:“The Blood in Our Veins”

Miquel Bulnes · 35 when first published

Novel · 622 pages · Historical, War, Politics

AIAI-generated summary:In 1921 Berber fighters drive the Spanish army out of the Rif. Captain Augusto Santamaría survives, too badly wounded to stay a soldier, and reluctantly joins the security service in Madrid.

Libris 2011 · Shortlist

Betrayal

Tikkop

Adriaan van Dis · 64 when first published

Novel · 223 pages · Politics

AIAI-generated summary:Forty years after they resisted apartheid together, Mulder, a Dutchman living in Paris, meets his old comrade Donald, a white South African, and accepts his invitation to see the new South Africa for himself.

Libris 2011 · Shortlist

Huid en haar

AITitle translated by AI:“Skin and Hair”

Arnon Grunberg · 39 when first published

Novel · 525 pages · Satire, Love

AIAI-generated summary:Professor Oberstein, an economist who treats love, loyalty and attention as goods to be bargained for, lives among people in New York who are all trying, each after a fashion, to trade their way to happiness.

Libris 2011 · Shortlist

Superduif

AITitle translated by AI:“Super Pigeon”

Esther Gerritsen · 38 when first published

Novel · 189 pages · Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Bonnie, an only child of older parents, wakes each morning shrieking with dread. Then, aged eleven, she drifts over a low gate while walking to class, a first hint that she is turning into a superhero.

Libris 2011 · Shortlist

The Detour

De omweg

Gerbrand Bakker · 48 when first published

Novel · 230 pages

AIAI-generated summary:A Dutch lecturer who has abandoned her academic job, her marriage and a thesis on Emily Dickinson withdraws to a remote house in a cold, autumnal corner of Wales.

Libris 2011 · Shortlist

Bonita Avenue

Bonita Avenue

Peter Buwalda · 39 when first published

Novel · 538 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:Siem, a former judo champion and gifted mathematician, has risen to head a university in Twente. His career thrives, but in 2000, the year of the Enschede fireworks disaster, his family falls apart.

Libris 2010 · Shortlist

Ruw

AITitle translated by AI:“Rough”

Marie Kessels · 55 when first published

Novel · 206 pages

AIAI-generated summary:After an accident leaves her blind, Gemma refuses to give up. With a cane, braille and her other senses she goes out alone and learns to find her way through the city again.

Libris 2010 · Shortlist

Een goed verhaal

AITitle translated by AI:“A Good Story”

Mensje van Keulen · 63 when first published

Short stories · 159 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Six stories about people who dread loneliness, among them a woman who swallows every insult from her much older partner, a writer, and a husband who must keep answering questions about his affair.

Libris 2010 · Shortlist

The Guard

De bewaker

Peter Terrin · 41 when first published

Novel · 242 pages · Speculative

AIAI-generated summary:Two guards, Harry and Michel, watch around the clock over the only entrance to a tower of luxury flats for the super-rich, deep in its underground car park. Then nearly all the residents leave, and nobody tells them why.

Libris 2010 · Shortlist

Speechless

Sprakeloos

Tom Lanoye · 51 when first published

Novel · 384 pages · Autofiction, Family

AIAI-generated summary:After a stroke, a Flemish butcher's wife and flamboyant amateur actress loses her power of speech and slowly declines. Her son, a writer, delays and doubts before he starts to build her a monument in words.

Libris 2010 · Shortlist

Terug naar Walden

AITitle translated by AI:“Back to Walden”

Walter van den Broeck · 68 when first published

Novel · 287 pages · Satire

AIAI-generated summary:Ruler Marsh, for a decade the wealthiest person alive, learns that a rare illness will soon kill him. He resolves to settle accounts with the financial greed that ruined his parents in the 1930s.

Libris 2009 · Shortlist

Counterpoint

Contrapunt

Anna Enquist · 63 when first published

Novel · 188 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:A woman, never given a name, works through Bach's Goldberg Variations at the piano, keeping notes, in an effort to reach again the daughter she has lost.

Libris 2009 · Shortlist

Onze oom

AITitle translated by AI:“Our Uncle”

Arnon Grunberg · 37 when first published

Novel · 624 pages · War, Politics

AIAI-generated summary:In an unnamed South American country where the army fights a guerrilla movement in a war no one may call a war, Major Anthony fails both as an officer and as a husband.

Libris 2009 · Shortlist

Koetsier Herfst

AITitle translated by AI:“Coachman Autumn”

Charlotte Mutsaers · 66 when first published

Novel · 460 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:Maurice, a celebrated but lonely writer who has run out of subjects, falls for Do, an animal rights campaigner looking for someone to write her life. They take a meat-free holiday in Ostend.

Libris 2009 · Shortlist

Visser

Rob van Essen · 45 when first published

Novel · 189 pages · Politics, Family

AIAI-generated summary:Jacob, a history teacher, says something ill-judged in class and is sent home. When a local reporter takes up the story, the shy teacher is cast as a neo-Nazi ringleader.

Libris 2009 · Shortlist

Alleen maar nette mensen

AITitle translated by AI:“Only Decent People”

Robert Vuijsje · 38 when first published

Novel · 286 pages · Coming of age, Satire

AIAI-generated summary:David Samuels, a Jewish boy from a well-to-do family in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid who is often mistaken for a Moroccan, skips university to look for a black woman from the projects.

Libris 2008 · Shortlist

Datumloze dagen

AITitle translated by AI:“Dateless Days”

Jeroen Brouwers · 67 when first published

Novel · 190 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:A cantankerous man past sixty walks in the woods, counting trees to quiet his nerves, and goes over the few failed encounters with the son he abandoned after a divorce.

Libris 2008 · Shortlist

Grote Europese Roman

AITitle translated by AI:“Great European Novel”

Koen Peeters · 48 when first published

Novel · 294 pages · Satire

AIAI-generated summary:Hired by a marketing agency, Robin tours the capitals of Europe to learn what unites the continent, comparing languages, postage stamps, ringtones, neckties and highest points.

Libris 2008 · Shortlist

De utopisten

AITitle translated by AI:“The Utopians”

Louise O. Fresco · 55 when first published

Novel · 349 pages · Politics

AIAI-generated summary:Michiel van Straten, a longtime left-wing and green activist, becomes a junior minister for technology and the environment and pushes for one bold national project.

Libris 2008 · Shortlist

Verder

AITitle translated by AI:“Onward”

Marc Legendre · 51 when first published

Novel · 208 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:A woman lands on a bleak island that seems to have a single inhabitant, a man. It emerges that she and he have been a couple for ten years and are playing out a game of their own design.

Libris 2008 · Shortlist

The Book Club

De literaire kring

Maxim Februari · 44 when first published

Novel · 308 pages · Politics

AIAI-generated summary:In a rich village of notables, Teresa Pellikaan, the carefree daughter of one of them, gradually learns that her father took part in an affair that caused great harm in distant countries.

Libris 2007 · Shortlist

The Twin

Boven is het stil

Gerbrand Bakker · 44 when first published

Novel · 264 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:On a dairy farm between Purmerend and Monnickendam, the quiet, fiftyish Helmer cares for his dying father, whom he hates, years after his twin brother Henk drowned when a car went into the water.

Libris 2007 · Shortlist

De verering van Quirina T.

AITitle translated by AI:“The Worship of Quirina T.”

L.H. Wiener · 61 when first published

Novel · 316 pages

AIAI-generated summary:As his years as an English teacher in Haarlem draw to a close, Victor van Gigch becomes obsessed with Quirina T., a pupil of seventeen, and travels back in mind to the village where he grew up.

Libris 2007 · Shortlist

De Pruimelaarstraat

Louis van Dievel · 53 when first published

Novel · 371 pages · Crime

AIAI-generated summary:Three sex murders in a Flemish village in the early 1970s upset an entire street. Neighbours, the local doctor, the curate and the policeman take turns to describe the crimes' effect on them.

Libris 2007 · Shortlist

Didar en Faroek

Sana Valiulina · 42 when first published

Novel · 429 pages · Historical, War

AIAI-generated summary:Two distant Tatar cousins come of age in Stalin's Soviet Union: a lively, ambitious girl who believes in communism, and a quiet, shy boy who has never trusted words. They first meet at thirteen.

Libris 2007 · Shortlist

Het derde huwelijk

AITitle translated by AI:“The Third Marriage”

Tom Lanoye · 48 when first published

Novel · 337 pages · Migration

AIAI-generated summary:Maarten Seebregs, a jobless gay man in his fifties with a fatal illness, accepts money to marry a young African woman, Tamara, on paper so that she can stay in Europe.

Libris 2006 · Shortlist

De ontelbaren

AITitle translated by AI:“The Countless”

Elvis Peeters · 48 when first published

Novel · 172 pages · Migration, Speculative

AIAI-generated summary:Countless newcomers pour into Europe from all over the world in search of a better life. Two Belgian neighbours try to make room for them, but numbers overwhelm what there is to share.

Libris 2006 · Shortlist

Knielen op een bed violen

AITitle translated by AI:“Kneeling on a Bed of Violets”

Jan Siebelink · 67 when first published

Novel · 445 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:Hans Sievez owns a beautiful nursery garden in Velp. Haunted by his father's harsh religion, he falls under the influence of strict Calvinist lay preachers, and his wife and two sons suffer for it.

Libris 2006 · Shortlist

Ritselingen

AITitle translated by AI:“Rustlings”

Michael Frijda · 44 when first published

Novel · 245 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:A woodcutter lives in a forest with his lame little son Kareltje, whose mother is gone. When the boy wants a deer, his father hunts one and brings it home dead.

Libris 2006 · Shortlist

The Angel Maker

De engelenmaker

Stefan Brijs · 36 when first published

Novel · 352 pages · Speculative, Family

AIAI-generated summary:In a superstitious village where three borders meet, a doctor who prizes science but nurses a secret quasi-religious ambition brings up three baby sons, triplets he has cloned from himself.

Libris 2006 · Shortlist

Joe Speedboat

Joe Speedboot

Tommy Wieringa · 38 when first published

Novel · 319 pages · Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Left in a wheelchair with one good arm after a mowing accident at thirteen, Fransje Hermans chronicles his village and a boy newly arrived there, who builds bombs and a working plane.

Libris 2005 · Shortlist

The Last Poets

De laatste dichters

Christine Otten · 43 when first published

Novel · 544 pages · Historical, Politics

AIAI-generated summary:Harlem, 1969: Malcolm X is dead and the Black Panthers are on the rise. A group of young Black poets, The Last Poets, chant furious verse over conga drums and invent an early form of rap.

Libris 2005 · Shortlist

Casino

Marja Brouwers · 56 when first published

Novel · 553 pages · Crime

AIAI-generated summary:Rink de Vilder, a reporter for a national paper, is tracking a cocaine consignment. In Monte Carlo he grows close to Philip van Heemskerk, a wealthy, unpredictable man who builds yachts and sails single-handed.

Libris 2005 · Shortlist

Het onverwachte antwoord

AITitle translated by AI:“The Unexpected Answer”

Patricia De Martelaere · 47 when first published

Novel · 285 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:Godfried H. is many things at once: lover, father, husband, lecturer, author. The women around him describe him one by one, from the woman sketching him to the geneticist he adores, his wife and a mistress.

Libris 2005 · Shortlist

Het logboek van Brandaan

AITitle translated by AI:“The Logbook of Brandaan”

Rob van der Linden · 47 when first published

Novel · 270 pages

Libris 2005 · Shortlist

Lichtjaren

AITitle translated by AI:“Light Years”

Stephan Enter · 31 when first published

Novel · 318 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:Shortly before his doctoral ceremony, the physicist Nils Groede meets someone from his past and recalls his affair with the pianist Hella Roukens in perfect detail, except for how she looked.

Libris 2004 · Shortlist

Blauwbaards ontwaken

AITitle translated by AI:“Bluebeards Awaken”

H.C. ten Berge · 65 when first published

Novel · 275 pages · Love, Politics · Moortgat, book 3

AIAI-generated summary:In 1967 a Dutch artist who prizes his freedom falls passionately for a Polish 'Comtesse', and their affair is carried on across the Iron Curtain between Warsaw and the Netherlands.

Libris 2004 · Shortlist

Buiten is het maandag

AITitle translated by AI:“Outside It Is Monday”

J. Bernlef · 66 when first published

Novel · 214 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:Widowed in a car crash he survived unconscious, an ageing Dutchman learns that his son has vanished and been glimpsed in Nova Scotia, and he crosses the ocean to look for him.

Libris 2004 · Shortlist

Toen kwam moeder met een mes

AITitle translated by AI:“Then Mother Came with a Knife”

Nicolien Mizee · 38 when first published

Novel · 207 pages · Family, Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:In a once-illustrious artistic family now sliding into decline, young Ida copes with a tyrannical mother by inventing rituals and magic rules, until reality slowly breaks through.

Libris 2004 · Shortlist

Maïsroest

AITitle translated by AI:“Maize Rust”

Rashid Novaire · 24 when first published

Novel · 126 pages · Family, Historical

AIAI-generated summary:Told by telegram in 1899 that his brother has been found dead in a Bohemian cornfield, a Dutch newspaperman later sets out to write both their lives and imagine the murder more kindly than it was.

Libris 2004 · Shortlist

Gran Café Boulevard

Tomas Lieske · 60 when first published

Novel · 357 pages · Love, War

AIAI-generated summary:Thrown together by a theft on a Spanish train in 1944, a passport forger and a young orphan become lovers in Bilbao, and in 1951 have to escape to a Dutch polder and his brother, a recluse who breeds bats.

Libris 2003 · Shortlist

De hydrograaf

AITitle translated by AI:“The Hydrographer”

Allard Schröder · 56 when first published

Novel · 204 pages · Historical

AIAI-generated summary:In 1913 a young German count and scholar of the sea sails from Hamburg to Chile to measure waves and currents, while his life ashore has run aground.

Libris 2003 · Shortlist

Gstaad 95-98

Arnon Grunberg · 31 when first published

Novel · 316 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Born of a hotel fling and raised in a German boarding house, François Lepeltier rehearses in secret for the part he believes will define him: wine waiter at the luxurious Palace Hotel in the Swiss Alps.

Libris 2003 · Shortlist

100% chemie

AITitle translated by AI:“100% Chemistry”

Doeschka Meijsing · 55 when first published

Novel · 159 pages · Family, Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:A novelist questions her evasive German-born mother about the family's past, piecing together four generations of women and their flight from Frankfurt to Holland in 1934.

Libris 2003 · Shortlist

Hokwerda's kind

AITitle translated by AI:“Hokwerda's Child”

Oek de Jong · 50 when first published

Novel · 443 pages · Love, Family

AIAI-generated summary:Doted on by her father until he leaves her life when she is ten, Lin Hokwerda grows up in Amsterdam, quits competitive table tennis at twenty and falls into three love affairs that lead her into darkness.

Libris 2003 · Shortlist

De hand, de kaars & de mot

AITitle translated by AI:“The Hand, the Candle & the Moth”

Rob van der Linden · 45 when first published

Novel · 334 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:A Haarlem grocer who believes himself a prophet, a family history featuring a mermaid ancestor, the man behind Blue Band margarine and a hunt for the Grail: a debut novel of interlocking tales.

Libris 2002 · Shortlist

Over de grens

AITitle translated by AI:“Across the Border”

Chaja Polak · 60 when first published

Novel · 178 pages · Family, Love

AIAI-generated summary:Connected tales of couples divided by hedges, gates, frontiers or memories trace episodes in the lives of Rosa and Esso, slowly bringing to light what weighed on the quiet house where Rosa grew up.

Libris 2002 · Shortlist

Koud

AITitle translated by AI:“Cold”

Geertrui Daem · 49 when first published

Novel · 220 pages · Family, Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Raised in 1960s Belgium, a teenage girl clashes with her embittered father, who fought in Korea and was never honoured for it.

Libris 2002 · Shortlist

Siegfried

Siegfried

Harry Mulisch · 74 when first published

Novel · 180 pages · Historical

AIAI-generated summary:During a book tour in Vienna, the famous Dutch novelist Rudolf Herter dreams up a fresh way to fathom Hitler, until two elderly Austrians who once worked for the dictator come to him with a secret.

Libris 2002 · Shortlist

Voel maar

AITitle translated by AI:“Just Feel”

Jan Brokken · 52 when first published

Novel · 222 pages · Love, Politics

AIAI-generated summary:On an ocean liner a judge from Curaçao, sidelined after a courtroom incident, meets Gabriela Obrizki, an Argentine woman who fled the junta and has drifted from place to place ever since.

Libris 2002 · Shortlist

The Kreutzer Sonata

Kreutzersonate

Margriet de Moor · 60 when first published

Novel · 168 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:A blind music critic who has avoided love since a disastrous youthful affair is drawn to a violinist after a chance travel companion, a young musicologist, describes her and arranges their meeting.

Libris 2001 · Shortlist

My Fellow Skin

Mijn tweede huid

Erwin Mortier · 35 when first published

Novel · 200 pages · Coming of age, Love

AIAI-generated summary:Anton, the only child of a close-knit Flemish family living by a dyke, sees his sheltered early years disturbed by a sudden death, a menacing cousin, school and a deepening bond with a boy in his class.

Libris 2001 · Shortlist

Het gemaal

AITitle translated by AI:“The Pumping Station”

Frank Noë · 41 when first published

Novel · 248 pages · War, Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:In wartime Holland, nineteen-year-old Willie Hoppe and his elder brother Steven volunteer for labour in the polder, digging drainage channels through mud and clay.

Libris 2001 · Shortlist

Boy

J. Bernlef · 63 when first published

Novel · 317 pages · Crime

AIAI-generated summary:America, early 1900s: a silent-film actress is found murdered and a deaf, mute youth discovered hiding in her room is convicted; a young newspaper reporter begins digging into who this 'Boy' really was.

Libris 2001 · Shortlist

De trein naar Pavlovsk en Oostvoorne

AITitle translated by AI:“The Train to Pavlovsk and Oostvoorne”

Toon Tellegen · 59 when first published

Short stories · 188 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:A writer sets down the tales, real or imagined, of the Russian-born grandfather of his boyhood: a court magician held captive by the tsar, a circus, an inventor of religions and the family's old St Petersburg ways.

Libris 2001 · Shortlist

Een man een man

Wanda Reisel · 45 when first published

Novel · 280 pages · Crime

AIAI-generated summary:For one day a young salesman of luxury English shoes roams Amsterdam, convinced that a single knife thrust has ended the life of Duco, the friend who has dominated him since school.

Libris 2000 · Shortlist

Marcel

Marcel

Erwin Mortier · 34 when first published

Novel · 119 pages · Family, War

AIAI-generated summary:In rural Flanders a small boy in his grandparents' care slowly discovers the disgrace that has haunted his relatives since the occupation, and about Marcel, the great-uncle whose name he carries and who died fighting in Russia.

Libris 2000 · Shortlist

Beer is terug

AITitle translated by AI:“Bear Is Back”

Helga Ruebsamen · 65 when first published

Short stories · 230 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:Stories where love and vengeance compete: an angel uprooted from a farm into a flat among nasty neighbours, a prim girl pursued by a tattooed stranger, an ex-actress whose bedroom performances wear thin.

Libris 2000 · Shortlist

De revue

AITitle translated by AI:“The Revue”

Kees 't Hart · 55 when first published

Novel · 285 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:A quarter of a century after running the spotlight at a revue, a man is invited back for a reunion and sets out to understand Zwiep, the dancer he loved hopelessly, who spoke in words of her own making.

Libris 2000 · Shortlist

Tonguecat

Tongkat

Peter Verhelst · 37 when first published

Short stories · 341 pages · Speculative, Politics

AIAI-generated summary:When Prometheus, a boy said to hold fire behind his teeth, dies at the hands of the police, an endless winter grips the country, the king disappears and a crumbling capital slides into revolution.

Libris 2000 · Shortlist

Winterhanden

AITitle translated by AI:“Winter Hands”

Stephan Enter · 26 when first published

Short stories · 185 pages

AIAI-generated summary:Six long stories, each about a boy or man who lets others steer his life: a schoolboy whose stamp talk derails, a student unable to end a romance, a son weighing whether to attend his long-absent father's burial.