Puinvrouw in Berlijn / Rubble Woman in Berlin
Published in 2009 by Vrijdag
First novel. On the longlist for the Gouden Uil 2010.

Puinvrouw in Berlijn is the first novel by Hilde Keteleer. The title refers to the German word ‘Trümmerfrau’. Christine Vandenbergy, a Flemish journalist, is working and living in Berlin. She falls head over heels in love with the both sensuous and enigmatic Gregor, and loses friends and work. In an intense game of attraction and rejection Gregor shows her around Berlin. Along with their efforts to find a common language, their talks revolve around their own history. The city but also language are almost the main characters in this novel. Berlin is the framework for the past, which appears, as does language, in bits and pieces – in shreds. Both their histories restrict the characters’ freedom to the extent that it becomes a matter of life or death.

 
De brug van dromen. Onderweg naar het nieuwe Mozambique. / The Bridge of Dreams. Towards a New Mozambique
Published by the Flemish International Cooperation Agency, written together with Emiel Vervliet

 
Omheind / Enclosures
Published in 2014 by Vrijdag
A story on memory and remembrance in the Jordan desert.

Lydia’s memory is impaired by Alzheimer’s. Now that she lives in the past, her son Thomas tries to uncover his real origins. His sister Petra’s memories of their youth are very different, tainted as they are by her jealousy. Finally, Lydia’s granddaughter Tommy, in the course of a love affair in Jordan, unearths her grandmother’s story there, a story impacted by the political events of the time. In the process, she also learns that the word ‘paradise’ once meant‘walled enclosure’. A walled enclosure – just like that around our memories.