“Nand Peeters, what a guy! I sure would have liked to have known him better!"
Inge Schelstraete in De Standaard“Somewhat to Van den Broeck’s own amazement, the listeners of Radio 1 even elected Anovlar, the Pill ‘Nand’ Peeters helped develop, ‘best Belgian invention of all times’, trumping the saxophone and the praline. But Van den Broeck has provided compelling arguments for that claim in his articles and TV documentary.”
Jimmy Koppen, Humanistisch Vrijzinnige Vereniging“We can be very brief about this: it is a wonderful book (...) by its multitude of anecdotes, testimonies and it’s very thorough preparatory research, this book comes highly recommended for those who want to discover the forgotten history of something as familiar as ‘the Pill’.”
Hollands Dagblad“The author’s story about how Peeters developed his Pill in Roman-Catholic Belgium is both captivating and extensive.”
Kerknet“Van den Broeck’s book is a smooth read and gives insights both in the origin of the compound as in the motives of Peeters for working on it.”
Rik Torfs, rector of the Catholic University of Leuven“What’s important for mankind is ‘une vie courageuse’. This courage has nothing to do with hara-kiri, with daredevilry or with climbing the barricades for one’s own aggrandizement. What it is, is the continued, courageous search for the right path and finding it in the place where you happen to stand, in Turnhout, of all places, in the late Fifties, at a time when the pill is about to materialize and ecclesiastical morals are teetering, without striving for glory but without fear. That is what Nand Peeters has done and what has been described so fantastically well in this book.”
Griet Cnudde, lawyer, in her laudation for Nand Peeters during the election of ‘The Best Belgian Invention’ on Radio 1“I can’t believe that our fantastic Belgian inventor was ashamed of his invention, even though - in my view – he made the most sublime discovery ever..”
Karl van den Broeck is a journalist, who has worked for the Flemish newspaper De Morgen for almost twenty years as, among others, editor in charge of culture and books. From 2005 until 2011 he was chief editor of the weekly Knack. Since 2014 he is chief editor of Apache.be, a news site dedicated to investigative journalism. He is the author of the non-fiction novel Why I want to save the Indians and children’s book The bird in my hair. He lives in Turnhout, the town where Dr. Ferdinand Peeters worked and died. ISBN: 9789463710541
