Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

‘Los’ is probably Tom Naegels’s most well-known book, thanks to the film adaptation by Jan Verheyen. Ever since, Naegels has been viewed as “the chronicler of contemporary urban Belgium”. He is a master at sketching lifelike situations and characters: from common Antwerp band The Strangers, political activist Abou Jahjah and a demented grandfather to a Pakistani girlfriend and a group of Senegalese crooks. But Tom Naegels is not only an author, he also writes an outspoken column for Flemish quality newspaper De Standaard. On top of that, he’s a gifted storyteller, as you’ll see at the 30th edition of Geletterde Mensen, where Naegels will take the stage together with Mounir Ait Hamou, a Belgian actor with Moroccan roots.

In a long, sarcastic, gripping and inspiring monologue, Tom Naegels talks about ordinary people, people in pursuit of happiness, the unlucky ones and poor people that have travelled thousands of miles to settle in Belgium, and about us, who live among them.