Dimitri Verhulst has just won the highest Dutch literary honour for a novel praised for its unparalleled use of language and ironic sense of humour. Both qualities are abundant in his Radio Books story.

The latest novel by Radio Books author Dimitri Verhulst has won the 2009 Libris Prize - the Netherlands' most prestigious literary honour. The jury praised his unparalleled use of language and sardonic humour.

Verhulst has been called "the Jacques Brel of Flemish literature." His work is noted for its empathetic characters and off-beat sense of humor. His novels and stories often contain autobiographical elements and social issues.

Born in Aalst, Belgium in 1972, his literary roots might be found in his Dickensian childhood. Due to family problems, he grew up in foster homes and institutions. His debut collection of stories De kamer hiernaast (The Room Next Door), published in 1999, dealt with his unsettled youth. It was nominated for the NRC Literature Prize.

The writer won Belgium's 2007 Golden Owl Readers Prize for his novel De helaasheid der dingen (The Misfortunates). The book again mines the painful territory of his own dysfunctional family. Balancing hilarity with tragedy, it has been compared to the work of Irish writer Roddy Doyle. A film version premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and raised eyebrows with a scene of naked bicycle riders.

Breakthrough novel
In 2003 Verhulst published a work seen as his breakthrough to a much broader reading public. Problemski Hotel examines the problems of asylum-seekers in Europe. The short novel is the result of several days the writer spent in a Belgian centre.

"A persuasive book whose vehemence clarifies why non-fiction does not suffice," wrote a Dutch reviewer. "The traces left in Verhulst's mind by his stay in the centre are more savage than the facts he recorded there. He had to exaggerate; distortion is reality."

The narrator is a wise-cracking Ethiopian photographer who bemoans the fact he was not in New York City on 11 September "...to photograph those two shrinking white lines in that magnificent blue sky, giving that image to the collective memory forever." Through him, Verhulst snaps captivating pictures of the inmates, their life in the center, and their dreams of a new life outside.

"I was nervous and wished I had something to take to stop my hands from shaking. Somehow I felt this would be my photo. The photo. The one that would signal the big breakthrough that would allow me to push up my market value, making it possible for me to ask the head honcho at Reuters if he could call me back when it was a little more convenient. A photographer feels things like that. The world-famous Henri Cartier-Bresson felt it in Paris when he snapped that little boy with two wine bottles... The same thing I felt with that starving kid in my viewfinder. Bliss."

Provocative and Versatile
Verhulst is only the second Flemish writer after Hugo Claus to win the Libris Prize. His provocatively titled novel Godverdomse dagen op een godverdomse bol (Goddamn Days on a Goddamn Planet) is a sardonic history of the world in just 200 pages. The jury called it "a bolt from the blue" in a Dutch literary landscape short on humour.

The versatile author has published a collection of poetry called Love, Unless Otherwise Stated. He has also written for the theatre. He translated Frederico Garcia Lorca's Yerma and co-wrote the play Aalst based on the 1999 child-murders trial in the city where he was born.

 
Adventure in Cuba
Verhulst's Radio Books story Who Drank Hector Hernandez? is about a man from the smallest village in Belgium. He wins a holiday in Cuba where he is faced with a most unexpected request by two attractive young women.

"Like almost everywhere else in the world, the less fortunate in Cuba draw portraits of tourists to pick up a few bucks. After two weeks in Cuba I was the owner of twenty-two cartoon-like portraits of my own mug, not one of which I would ever frame. I knew I had big ears, they didn't need to rub my nose in it. Refusing to buy the portrait is an insult to the artist... Trouble I could do without, so I immediately paid for each and every portrait of myself as Dumbo."

The story was translated by Amsterdam-based Australian writer David Colmer. He also translated Dimitri Verhulst's novel Problemski Hotel published in English by Marion Boyers Publishers and available in a dozen other languages as well.  

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.