This slender book by the great Flemish writer Erwin Mortier packs more punch than many a heftier volume. A cry of anguish at the ingenious forms dying can take, it is also an unflinching study of Alzheimer’s disease, which robbed his mother, at the early age of 65, of speech, memory and self. “Today my mother gave me a thorough dusting, thinking I was a piece of furniture. Perhaps a chest of drawers or an old cooker.”

So these stammered songs begin. They follow the disappearance into oblivion of a once vivacious woman, a mother of five, who was at the centre of a busy household. She first jumbles, then loses language, co-ordination, recognition, sleep and appetite, becoming thinner and frailer. It is only her husband she continues to know, following him about mutely while she can, with restless, tottering steps. He won’t give her up to a care home, but the burden is heavy.

Mortier has a poet’s eye for vibrant detail and prose to match. The love between his parents is palpable. The doctors, with their examinations and their professional burden of healing optimism, can only crumble his mother “into fragments of rock-hard Latin”. The medical task is to provide a flimsy shield of knowledge against the primordial howl.

A mother’s primary role is to acknowledge her children, to be attentive to their words. Mortier’s mother is no longer capable of it. The habits that structure a life have deserted her. Words have gone along with them. Mortier tries to provide a counterbalance of memories to make her past sing. If this is a book of fragmentation, it is also a son’s moving tribute.

Paul Vincent is to be commended for his splendid translation and Pushkin Press for bringing us this plus Mortier’s prize-winning fiction. From his debut Marcel to his Great War novel, While the Gods were Sleeping, Mortier is a writer to savour.

Stammered Songbook is published by Pushkin Press (£8.99). Click here to buy it for £7.19