Writer and lawyer Rachida Lamrabet is a promising new voice in the Flemish literary landscape. In her Radio Books story, a woman finds unexpected healing powers in a tropical rainforest.

Rachida Lamrabet - 'Frog'

Flemish-Moroccan writer Rachida Lamrabet was born in 1970 and works as a lawyer for the Centre for Equality of Opportunity and Opposition to Racism in Brussels. In 2006 her story ‘Mercedes 207’ about a Moroccan who regularly travels between his relatives in Morocco and his family in Antwerp won the literary prize ‘Colour the Arts!’ and was included in the collection ‘Kif Kif. New Voices from Flanders.’

Multiculturalism

The central character in her 2007 novel ‘Vrouwland’  (Woman Country) is a Moroccan woman in Antwerp who has chosen a Western lifestyle and embraces her personal freedom, but not without encountering opposition and doubt. The book was highly praised by critics for its strong characters and its decisive and highly readable style. It was awarded the 2008 Flemish Debut prize.

Lamrabet again takes on the subject of multiculturalism in Belgium with her second book ‘Een kind van God’ (A Child of God) published in 2008. The collection of “ordinary stories about extraordinary people” won the BNG New Literature Prize.

Survivors

Her Radio Books story shows why Lamrabet is considered one of the most exciting new voices in Dutch literature. Layer by intimate layer the writer gently reveals the emotional consequences of a traumatic family tragedy. In an attempt to escape her grief, the unnamed woman joins a scientific expedition in Columbia.

“Counting frogs was all she wanted to do. Making an inventory of survivors. Of amphibians who themselves were not aware of their approaching extermination. For now,  they croaked and rustled carefree through the leaves and in the ponds and pools which were left behind by the floods and which were now swarming and seething with small wriggling and transparent organisms which moved through the warm, muddy pool with the charm of released spermatozoa.”

 
‘Frog’ by Rachida Lamrabet was translated by Michael O’Loughlin. The story is read by Jacky Spears.

The series Radio Books is an initiative of the Flemish-Dutch Huis de Buren in Brussels, in association with the Flemish radio broadcaster Klara and Radio Netherlands Worldwide.