appearances: dominique de groen, maarten inghels, roman nesterenco and wout vermijs

a royal appearance Maarten Inghels is one of Flanders' most inventive writers. In his new novel, he receives the special assignment to write a portrait of Crown Princess Elizabeth for her eighteenth birthday. Maarten and Elizabeth have surprisingly open conversations, but the princess also sees in her biographer an instrument with which she hopes to loosen her royal corset a little. Achttien is a playful ode to wonder in which Inghels brilliantly weaves fact and fiction. a hallucinatory appearance Dominique De Groen was already praised and awarded for her original poetry collections, but with her ambitious first novel Corpus Britney she now throws the windows and doors of Dutch-language literature wide open to let the whole world in. De Standaard wrote: “More than once you feel dizzy while reading, but so much bravado, so much engagement, so much stylistic brilliance too – that is quite unprecedented. At the end you are just stunned.” Ook Knack threw five stars for this “bear-strong debut”. published elsewhere Roman Nesterenco is a Ukrainian-Dutch translator and is part of CELA, a European project that connects translators and authors. Together with Tobias Wals, he translated the novels The Internat (Інтернат) and Nobody Will Ask About Anything (Арабески) by Serhi Zhadan, published by De Geus. In August, Heldin, his translation of the book Доця by Tamara Doeda, will be published. The novel is about a woman who takes action when the war breaks out, and was awarded the prestigious Nationale Sjevtsjenko prize in Ukraine. Nesterenco comes to talk about his experiences with writers who continue to celebrate literature despite the war in their country. a fascinating appearance Illustrator Wout Vermijs is inspired by the words of the writers and makes drawings for their stories. We can follow the drawing process live on a large screen while the authors read from and talk about their book. In this way, Vermijs adds new layers to their sentences and a wordless imprint of the books remains. the disappearance This is how we build a stack of books during the evening with which you can satisfy your reading hunger again. At the end, that stack might disappear into your tote bag, because Passa Porta Bookshop gives all the books away to a spectator chosen by chance. For the others, the reading pleasure is of course also just for sale. about the authors Maarten Inghels is a poet, writer and multidisciplinary artist. He was city poet of Antwerp and has already published several well-received poetry collections. His chilling novel Het mirakel van België (2021) tells about his experiences with ‘the greatest con artist in the world’, Piet Van Haut. In 2025, Hannibal & Gideon was published, a novella about an elephant journey over the Alps. In his work, Inghels often tightrope walks between fact and fiction. Achttien was published in May 2026 by Das Mag. Dominique De Groen (1991) is a writer and visual artist. She previously published the poetry collections Shop Girl (2017), Sticky Drama (2019), Offerlam (2020) and Slangen (2022) with het balanseer, which were awarded the Jan Campertprijs and the Cultuurprijs van Stad Gent, among others. Corpus Britney is her novel debut. Roman Nesterenco studied Eastern European languages and cultures at UGent. In 2024, he was selected for the multi-year CELA program (Connecting Emerging Literary Artists), which brings emerging authors and translators into contact with each other and stimulates them. Together with his mentor Tobias Wals, he has already translated two novels by Ukrainian author Serhi Zjadan. Occasionally he translates for the Tijdschrift voor Slavische Literatuur and for the newspapers De Standaard and De Morgen. Wout Vermijs studied graphic design and made his own graphic novel as a graduation project. Since then, he has been active as an illustrator and art teacher. He can also be seen on stage as a guitarist for the Brussels ‘suave rock’ band Jakomo, where he brings not only the musical but also the visual aspects of the band to life. about the hostess Jelle Van Riet (Bruges, 1971) is a freelance literary journalist. She writes in-depth interviews for De Standaard, often acts as a hostess and is the head and heart of Rietepetite, a non-profit organization that sets up seductive projects with literature and poetry as potting soil. Jelle lives and works in an Italian mountain village.