Men dominate the Dutch literary canon, while there are so many fantastic female writers. Since 2021, Jannah Loontjens and Annelies Verbeke have been highlighting women that everyone who loves reading should know. After a summer break they are back with an episode about Monika van Paemel’s highly autobiographical The damned fathers, one of the few Flemish WWII novels from a female perspective. Van Paemel, now 78, looks back in the podcast. She had decided not to write like a gentleman. Ça manque quelque chose. As with previous episodes, it makes you want to buy the book right away, and in the process you learn a lot about what it meant, and means, to be a woman.
A version of this article also appeared in the September 9, 2023 newspaper.