Reading List

Authors Like Chris De Stoop

Chris De Stoop's first book, about the trafficking of women into Belgium, led to a parliamentary inquiry. Twenty years later he went home to the polder near Antwerp where he grew up, to work the family farm the government was turning back into marshland to make room for the port; Dit is mijn hof (2015) became his best-seller. Then his uncle Daniel's farmhouse burned down with the old man inside, a group of local teenagers was arrested, and De Stoop stood up in court as a party to the case. Het boek Daniel (2020) is about that, and Hemelrijk (2022) followed. All eleven of his books are in Dutch. The ten below were chosen on two counts: each writes about a real place or a real crime, and each makes their own stake in it part of the reporting.

By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Literary non-fiction · Land, village and crime · Updated October 2026

Quick answer

If you love Chris De Stoop, the closest match is Geert Mak: Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd is the decline of one Frisian village. For the crime in a farming community, read Truman Capote and Emmanuel Carrère; for the farmer's side of the land, James Rebanks; and for Dutch-language reporting of the same weight, Frank Westerman and David Van Reybrouck. Janet Malcolm questions what happens when a writer is part of the story. Each entry below says what place or crime they wrote about and what was at stake for them.

Every book by Chris De Stoop →

Where to start if you loved Chris De Stoop

If you want the closest match, read Geert Mak.

Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd. One Frisian village, fifty years of change.

If you liked Het boek Daniel, read Truman Capote.

In Cold Blood. A farmhouse killing, from the other side.

If you want the farmer's view in English, read James Rebanks.

English Pastoral. Three generations on one farm.

If you want a French village murder, read Florence Aubenas.

L'Inconnu de la poste. Seven years on one killing.

If you want more Flemish non-fiction, read David Van Reybrouck.

Congo. A country's history in the voices of its people.

If you want more reporting like this

My list of the best investigative journalism books has the rest.

10 authors like Chris De Stoop

01
The village in decline · Closest match

Geert Mak

Dutch · Jorwerd (Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd, 1996), In Europe (2004)

Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd follows the decline of one Frisian village in the second half of the twentieth century — the farms consolidated, the shop and the school closed, the church emptied — and became one of the best-selling Dutch non-fiction books. In Europe travels the continent's twentieth century in a year.

The place or crime:Jorwerd, a Frisian village, from the 1950s to the 1990s.

The stake:A city writer who had lived there and kept going back.

Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd is the book Dit is mijn hof most resembles: the end of a rural way of life, told through the people still living it. Mak is the more detached historian; De Stoop is the farmer's son with dirt on his boots.

— Lisanne

Every book by Geert Mak →

02
The farmers of Groningen

Frank Westerman

Dutch · De graanrepubliek (1999), Engineers of the Soul (2002), Ararat (2007)

Westerman grew up in Groningen and wrote De graanrepubliek about the rise and fall of its great grain farmers. His later books start from one object or place — a Soviet writers' project, a mountain, a stuffed body in a museum — and follow it into history.

The place or crime:The grain farms of Groningen and the men who ran them.

The stake:He grew up in the province he writes about.

Westerman's De graanrepubliek traces the rise and fall of Groningen's grain farmers across a century, the Dutch counterpart to De Stoop's polder. Both writers start from home and widen out into history.

— Lisanne

Every book by Frank Westerman →

03
Older than the genre · The farm and the killers

Truman Capote

American · Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958), In Cold Blood (1966)

In Cold Blood reconstructs the 1959 murder of a farming family in Holcomb, Kansas, by two young men, and the six years that followed until their execution. Capote called it a non-fiction novel and spent years in the town, interviewing almost everyone involved.

The place or crime:The murder of a farming family in Holcomb, Kansas, by two young men.

The stake:Six years in the town and close contact with the killers.

In Cold Blood and Het boek Daniel describe the same kind of event — a farmhouse, a death, young men from outside the household — from opposite positions: Capote befriended the accused, De Stoop spoke for the victim's family.

— Lisanne

Every book by Truman Capote →

Authors like Truman Capote →

04
Not Flemish · The writer in the courtroom

Emmanuel Carrère

French · The Adversary (2000), Limonov (2011), V13 (2022)

The Adversary is about Jean-Claude Romand, who in 1993 killed his wife, his children and his parents after eighteen years of pretending to be a doctor at the World Health Organization. Carrère corresponded with him in prison and attended his trial, and left his own hesitation about writing the book inside it.

The place or crime:A family killing in France and the trial that followed.

The stake:His own doubts about writing it, kept in the book.

Carrère attended Jean-Claude Romand's trial and corresponded with him for years. Like De Stoop he does not pretend to be neutral, and the courtroom scenes in the two books share their unease.

— Lisanne

Every book by Emmanuel Carrère →

Authors like Emmanuel Carrère →

05
Not Flemish · The village murder

Florence Aubenas

French · The Night Cleaner (Le Quai de Ouistreham, 2010)

Aubenas, a well-known French reporter who had been held hostage in Iraq in 2005, registered at a job centre in Caen as an unemployed woman with no qualifications and spent six months in cleaning jobs, including on the cross-Channel ferries at Ouistreham. The book was filmed in 2021 with Juliette Binoche.

The place or crime:The killing of a postmistress in a mountain village in France.

The stake:Seven years of returning to the same village.

Aubenas's L'Inconnu de la poste is the French counterpart to Het boek Daniel: a death in a small community, a suspect, and a reporter who stays long enough to understand the village. She has no family stake in it, which makes the comparison instructive.

— Lisanne

Every book by Florence Aubenas →

Authors like Florence Aubenas →

06
Not Flemish · The farmer who writes

James Rebanks

British · The Shepherd's Life (2015), English Pastoral (2020)

Rebanks is a sheep farmer in the Lake District whose family has worked the same fells for generations. The Shepherd's Life describes a year of that work; English Pastoral tells how industrial farming changed his grandfather's land, and what he is doing to bring the soil back.

The place or crime:His family's sheep farm in the Lake District.

The stake:The land his grandfather worked, and what modern farming did to it.

Rebanks writes the farmer's side of the argument De Stoop makes about the polder: land that is worked, loved and threatened by forces far away. English Pastoral is the closest book in English to Dit is mijn hof.

— Lisanne
07
The Flemish non-fiction tradition

David Van Reybrouck

Belgian · Congo (2010), Against Elections (2013), Revolusi (2020)

Congo tells the country's history largely through interviews with hundreds of Congolese people, including a man who said he was born in the 1880s; it won the AKO Literatuurprijs. Revolusi does the same for Indonesia's independence.

The place or crime:Congo, through hundreds of interviews.

The stake:A Flemish writer facing his country's colonial past.

Van Reybrouck belongs to the same generation of Flemish literary non-fiction and shares De Stoop's method of building a large story from many voices. Congo is broader in scope; the moral seriousness is the same.

— Lisanne

Every book by David Van Reybrouck →

08
The Flemish travelling reporter

Lieve Joris

Belgian · Back to the Congo (1987), The Gates of Damascus (1993), Mali Blues (1996)

Joris travels to a place, lives there for months and writes from beside the people who take her in, often women. Back to the Congo follows the trail of a great-uncle who had been a missionary there.

The place or crime:Months living in Congo, Syria, Mali and beyond.

The stake:Her own family history in Congo, in her first book.

Joris is the other great Flemish reporter of her generation. Back to the Congo starts, like Dit is mijn hof, from a family connection and becomes a book about a whole country.

— Lisanne

Every book by Lieve Joris →

09
Not Flemish · Going home

Annie Ernaux

French · A Man's Place (1983), The Years (2008), Look at the Lights, My Love (2014)

Ernaux writes about her own life and her working-class origins in Normandy in flat, exact prose she calls neither fiction nor memoir. Look at the Lights, My Love is a year's diary of a hypermarket in the new town of Cergy. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022.

The place or crime:Rural Normandy, where she grew up.

The stake:Her own family, and the distance education put between them.

Ernaux writes about returning to the world of her parents with the same mix of love and estrangement De Stoop brings to the polder. A Man's Place, about her father, is the book to pair with Dit is mijn hof.

— Lisanne

Every book by Annie Ernaux →

Authors like Annie Ernaux →

10
The argument against

Janet Malcolm

Czech-born American · In the Freud Archives (1984), The Journalist and the Murderer (1990)

The Journalist and the Murderer examines the relationship between the writer Joe McGinniss and Jeffrey MacDonald, the convicted murderer who sued him after reading the book McGinniss wrote about him. Its opening argues that journalism rests on a kind of betrayal of the people who talk to journalists. Malcolm wrote for The New Yorker for decades and died in 2021.

The place or crime:One case: a writer who befriended a convicted murderer.

The stake:What a writer owes when they are part of the story.

Malcolm examines what happens when a writer is both participant and witness. De Stoop was a party in his uncle's trial as well as its chronicler, and Malcolm asks the questions that double role raises.

— Lisanne

Every book by Janet Malcolm →

Frequently asked questions about authors like Chris De Stoop

Who should I read if I love Chris De Stoop?

Geert Mak is the closest match: Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd is the decline of one Frisian village. Frank Westerman, David Van Reybrouck and Lieve Joris belong to the same Dutch-language tradition, Truman Capote, Emmanuel Carrère and Florence Aubenas wrote long books about one killing, James Rebanks and Annie Ernaux write about going home to the land, and Janet Malcolm questions the writer's double role.

What books are similar to Het boek Daniel?

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966), The Adversary by Emmanuel Carrère (2000) and L'Inconnu de la poste by Florence Aubenas (2021): each is a long account of one death and the community around it.

What books are similar to Dit is mijn hof?

Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd by Geert Mak (1996), De graanrepubliek by Frank Westerman (1999) and, in English, English Pastoral by James Rebanks (2020).

Are Chris De Stoop's books available in English?

They were written and first published in Dutch, and my guide lists the Dutch editions. If you read only English, start with James Rebanks or Geert Mak's Jorwerd, which is translated, from the list above: they cover the closest ground.

Where should I start with Chris De Stoop?

Dit is mijn hof (2015) if you want the polder and the farm, or Het boek Daniel (2020) if you want the crime and the trial. My guide to all eleven Chris De Stoop books covers each one.

Nothing here was suggested by a machine. I picked these ten myself, and the reasons are on the page.

Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021. See more on her personal bookshelf.

More from the shelf

Author guide

Books Written by Chris De Stoop

All eleven, in order.

Author guide

Books Written by Geert Mak

The closest match, in order.

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Authors Like Emmanuel Carrère

More writers in the courtroom.

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Best Investigative Journalism Books

Reporting that changed what we know.

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