Adult writing for kids

The Flemish author Bart Moeyaert consciously chose, while still a youthful experimenter, ‘adult writing for children and youths’. He is a careful writer, with an eye for stylistic and linguistic consistency and a taste for original ways of using narrative strategies. Although sometimes less accessible for young readers, his books tap uncharted depths in children and arouse interesting needs. Blote handen (Bare Hands, 1995) is a perfect example. The plot is succinct and spans just a few hours. On a chilly winter afternoon on the last day of the year, a drama with the dimensions of a Greek tragedy is played out on the bare cold fields. Little boys occupy centre stage. Boys who hate, whose words are filled with revenge. (‘All great murders are to do with revenge’ or ‘We are going to punish him for existing’) Boys who hate and talk like little boys do. Or love. Their dog Elmer, for example. Or their mothers, who smell like ovens, frying pans, wood fires, like mother and have caressing hands and shoulders to rest your head on. Or their friend (‘We were a pair of shoes. On one shoe we walked crooked’). Through the original composition, the simple use of language, the intriguing images and the oppressive suggestive power, a simple story grows into an obsessive epic full of vague and unspoken feelings, a genuine literary work of art.

The short story Mansoor (1996) contains the same ingredients. In barely 45 short pages Bart Moeyaert compresses condensed tragedy and oppression and evokes the irreconcilability of his own childlike empire and the adult universe. His books for beginning readers (Voor altijd, altijd; Forever and Always, 1992; Echt weg is niet zo ver; Really Gone is Not That Far, 1993; Die steeg van ons; Our Alleyway, 1994) are written with the same artistic rigour. Together with Anne Provoost, he is undoubtedly one of the most important Flemish writers.