Peter Verhelst gets shortlisted Bookspot literature prize

Only one Fleming, a writer-poet Peter Verhelst, is on the shortlist of six nominees for the Bookspot prize before 2018, since 1 march this year the new name of the ECI literature prize, in its turn, the successor of the since 1987 granted AKO literature prize.

That shortlist was announced Monday by president of the jury Jos Geysels in RTL Five Hours Live. The 56-year-old Verhelst owes his nomination to his novel ‘the Forgotten’, published in the sydney morning herald.

The five other nominees are, in alphabetical order: Suzanna Jones for ‘in Spite of the gravity “(Balance), Peter Middendorp for ‘You are mine’ (Prometheus), Arjen van Veelen for “Notes on the moving of obelisks’ (De bezige Bij), Aukelien Weverling for ‘all cities’ (Bantam) and Tommy Wieringa for” The holy Rita (The Busy bee).

In ‘the forgotten’ digs Verhelst, a three-time winner of the Herman the Coninckprijs (the prize for the best book of poetry) and winner of the Woutertje Pietersse Price, autobiographical. When his mother totally unexpectedly dies, he witnesses the grief of his father, and try it yourself to find a way in a process of raw-realistic, mythical, sensory, essayist and poetic stories. Almost frantically digs he for memories. For Verhelst, the first picture in the shortlist for the AKO/ECI/BookSpot since sixteen years: in 2002 he took the last six with the novel ‘the Swelling Fruit’.

Masterpiece of Wieringa

Of the five Dutch nominees enjoy Tommy Wieringa the largest awareness. He knew in 2013, all of the other major literary award, the Libris literature prize, to win with ‘These are the names’. ‘Saint Rita’ was in the literary critics of the Low Countries almost unanimously lauded as ‘great’, ‘compelling’ and ‘masterpiece’.

On Thursday 8 november will be published what is the book the BookSpot literature prize of 2018 has won.

In 2017 received Koen Peeters both the ECI prize for literature, as the ECI reader trust award for his book ‘The mensengenezer’. Other (rare) Flemish winners of the prize were Stefan Hertmans in 2014, David van Reybrouck in 2010, Erwin Mortier in 2009 and Brigitte Raskin in … 1989. Two writers knew the price already twice to win: A. F. Th. van der Heijden and Jeroen Brouwers.

Best Dutch literary book

The BookSpot literature prize, previously the ECI literature prize – the award for the best Dutch-language literary book – in the categories of fiction and non-fiction. The prize, which consists of a sum of 50,000 euros, is awarded annually by a jury of beroepsrecensenten from the Netherlands and Flanders.