Roger Van de Velde, a maverick of Flemish literature and a virtuoso word artist, was addicted to the painkiller Palfium, and after forging prescriptions he repeatedly found himself in prisons and psychiatric institutions. In the twenty powerful short stories in Crackling Skulls, here presented in English for the first time in a brilliant translation by Jonathan Reeder, he portrays his "companions in misery" in those institutions, people living on the fringes of society. He combines his own intense compassion for his fellow internees with detached and razor-sharp observations. Through his haunting descriptions, we get to know Daniel, who smokes one cigarette after another for three days ­because Prometheus has instructed him to do so, Jules Leroy, who kills his beloved cat after it eats his roast beef, and the Marquis de la Motte, who writes out IOUs for billions of francs. He describes their madness with respect and love, and persistently goes in search of the final remnants of humanity within them.