With over 250,000 copies sold of her debut novel Het Smelt (dt. Und es schmilzt), translations into 16 languages, and a film adaptation in 2023, Lize Spit is one of Belgium’s great literary success stories. As Samuel Fischer Visiting Professor, she spent the summer term at the Peter Szondi Institute at FU, with a broken ankle and, for the first time in her life, without an idea for a new book. In conversation, the Flemish author talks about the feeling her novels always begin with and why suspense is, above all, a friendly power play for her. Nori Holst conducted an in-depth interview with her.