First edition, hard cover, May 2021.

Querido, 2021

Ronke loves running. Preferably by the sea, with the wind in her hair, the sand beneath her feet and the smell of salt in her nose. But two years ago, she crashed into a toddler on the beach. Ronke is blind, that’s why. Since then, she only ever runs inside her head. At a stargazing camp she slowly opens up to her buddy Nouri. He challenges her to escape and do some real running with him. Nouri has his own reasons for not wanting to stay at the camp. His mother is planning to come and collect him to go visit his grandfather in Croatia. But Nouri wants to have nothing to do with this man, who has always refused to see him.

In ‘Ronke’s Night’ Jef Aerts brings the wonder of science and the power of the imagination together into a thrilling and poetic adventure. He describes Ronke’s struggle to go her own way and to free herself from the sense of limitation brought on by her blindness in the beautiful, visual way we have come to expect from him. And in doing so, he turns ‘Ronke’s Night’ into a compelling story about pushing boundaries.

Read more about Ronke's Night on Flanders Literature.

Cover and some small black&white illustrations by Marit Törnqvist.

(c) Marit Törnqvist