The 10 best books of March according to the Literature editorial staff of De Standaard

Tom Lanoye adapted Shakespeare’s classic Macbeth and masterfully revives the drama in the 21st century. He cuts back on the number of characters and presents them in a full, layered and balanced way. For example, Lady and Lord Macbeth are equally present from beginning to end and he even introduces a new female character, Lady Banquo. With attention to parenthood and hints at postnatal depression, Lanoye effortlessly lifts the story to today. Naturally, the recent winner of the Prize for Dutch Literature does not miss the opportunity to critically allude to the turbulent current events. A five-star theater text.

Prometheus, 144 pages.

Read the review here.

For performance dates, visit www.theatergroepsuburbia.nl.

The novel by the German writer Jenny Erpenbeck is all about Kairos, the Greek god of the favorable moment. Sun Opportunistic moment leads to a meeting between Katharina and Hans in East Berlin in 1986, who begin an intense and complex relationship. The 19-year-old student and the married 53-year-old man end up on a rollercoaster, with secret sexual encounters as the highlight and cassette tapes full of recriminations as the low point. Kairos. tells about an unbalanced relationship while the book brings the GDR back to life with some nostalgia. Erpenbeck writes in a controlled manner about great emotions, adding another impressive title to her oeuvre.

De Geus, 352 pages.

Read the review here.

As a young journalist, the Jewish-Austrian writer Joseph Roth (1894-1939) made reports in the restive Heanzenland, the border area between Austria and Hungary. Later also on the turbulent Polish-Russian border, and in his native Galicia. His collected border reports have now been translated and collected in Between the armies. Border reports, with powerful illustrations by artist Koen Broucke. The parallels with the Russia-Ukraine war and the violence in Gaza are unmistakable and the existential questions that Roth raises effortlessly span a full century.

Van Oorschot, 64 pages.

Read the review here.

Irish journalist Mark O’Connell delved into the world of the infamous murderer Malcolm Macarthur and wrote a compelling portrait of a criminal with a cult following. When the rich man’s son’s source of money runs out, he robs a bank, but things go terribly wrong when he kills two people in cold blood. A trail of violence is a profound search for the brutal truth hidden behind Macarthur’s fabrications.

Thomas Rap, 320 pages.

Read the review here.

Demon Copperhead is a retelling of David Copperfield, Dickens’ classic from 1850, and already one of the books of the year. The American writer Barbara Kingslover won a Pulitzer Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction for it.

Demon Copperhead is born in a trailer and grows up in the Appalachians, a region in North America that is burdened by poverty and addiction. The sharp and truthful narrative voice of the main character takes the reader along for more than 500 heartbreaking pages. Kingsolver wrote a beautiful, compelling novel about foster care, pills and pain.

Meulenhoff, 544 pages.

Read the review here.

Babi Jar, named after the ravine near the Ukrainian capital Kiev, is a devastating eyewitness account. When the Nazis occupied Kiev in 1941, Anatoli Kuznetsov was a curious, reckless boy of twelve. He gives in with that childish look Babi Jar the gruesome history of his city: the raids, the looting, the persecution of Jews. Kuznetsov wrote down the brutality and horror, his account deserves to be read.

The Busy Bee, 440 pages.

Read the review here.

The graphic novel Way out follows the Polish Magda, who has an unwanted pregnancy, on her flight to the Netherlands. Due to the strict abortion law in her home country, the more than thousand kilometer long drive is the only ‘way out’ she has left. The colors in B. Carrot’s watercolors brighten as redemption approaches and thus help tell the story: warm yellow for a rare carefree moment and cold blue as soon as doubt strikes. A painfully relevant story about the impact of abortion policy.

Oogachtend, 288 pages.

Read the review here.

To escape from the everyday, and according to him, meaningless life, an American with Iranian roots wants to die as a martyr. But his view on life and death, and everything in between, changes when he meets a cancer patient who turns her slow death into a work of art. Martyr! is an intoxicating, energetic novel about doubt, alcoholism and martyrdom. The debut of the American-Iranian millennial Kaveh Akbar is a literary cocktail of Iranian fatalism and American optimism about progress.

Pluim, 432 pages.

Read the review here.

The red pieces is an atypical true crime book and a highlight within the genre. When Jane Mixer, the aunt of American writer Maggie Nelson, was brutally murdered in 1969, the author had not yet been born. But the lawsuit takes decades to come to fruition. A serial killer is pointed at for a long time until new evidence emerges. Nelson writes about the lawsuit, the open wound and the grieving process. The red pieces talks in ‘pieces’ about both her personal life and the lawsuit.

Atlas Contact, 224 pages.

Read the review here.

British zoologist Lucy Cook traveled the world, collected and compiled fascinating knowledge about animal behavior Bitch. Along the way she unmasks and punctures sexist prejudices and binary ideas about gender, in short, Darwin’s mistakes. Because the distinction between men and women is anything but natural, as the scientists she speaks also confirm. The book delves into the genderless continuum of nature with an open mind and humor.

De Geus, 448 pages.

Read the review here.