I have dedicated my newest novel, ‘The Works of Lara’, to Westerlo.
By Westerlo I mean the many people I have come to know and appreciate here. As a twenty-year-old I arrived, somewhat by chance, in the then still quiet Westerlo of 1966. Majestic avenues, round cobblestone roads, sand, heath; for a city boy, at once a strange and enchanting experience.
My wife followed me to Westerlo, and my children grew up there. I think it was a good place to be a child, a safe place, a place where you could play and learn, where the air was clean and nature could take its course.
Of course, it did not all stay that way. Progress did not pass Westerlo by: asphalt on the roads, electric street lighting, traffic lights, traffic jams, apartments, a tourist office in the old deanery. Successive mergers turned the village into a sizeable municipality. Restaurants arrived, with and without stars, supermarkets, dentists and lawyers, and the village doctors were replaced by proper group practices.
Now, sixty years later, I look back with gratitude on my life here. I found friends and good colleagues here, shared joy and sorrow with many people, was able to spread my wings and achieve what I aspired to. That is why I wrote this book, in which Westerlo, more than Lara, plays a leading role. At the end of my brief writing life, out of gratitude for everything.