Danish literary magazine autumn 2014

DANISH ARTS FOUNDATION

DANISH LITER ARY MAGA ZINE AUTUMN

2014

COVER ILLUSTRATION Rasmus Bregnhøi (born 1965) is a Danish author, painter and illustrator who lives in Copenhagen.

Rasmus has illustrated around 100 picture books, including a number of graphic novels. He has been awarded several work grants from the Danish Arts Foundation - a three year work grant in 2013, a Søren Gyldendal travel grant in 2010 and the Ministry of Culture’s Illustrator Award in 2008.

His illustrations have been exhibited in Tokyo, Tallinn, Venice, Bologna and Budapest.

WELCOME This autumn’s book season is upon us and Danish Literary Magazine highlights some new books that show where Danish literature is ‘at’ right now. Works, which already seem set for distinction, and others that we feel deserve recognition beyond Denmark’s shores, are presented in this issue.

But before it can go global, Danish literature has to be translated – and translated well.

Only via a host of dedicated translators can Danish literature take flight, by way of their literary and linguistic expertise and also their knowledge of the source and target cultures.

In the next few years, the Danish Arts Foundation plans to focus on these translators in a

number of ways.

Partly via the establishment of a summer school in Copenhagen, the idea is to help

translators develop their full potential, both linguistically and professionally. The creation of national networks, meanwhile, will facilitate translator interaction, including contact between novice and highly experienced translators; not just for the exchange of ideas but also for professional gatherings, including publishers in the relevant countries. Language and cultural seminars, author sessions, or needs expressed at local level, are the type of things envisaged.

The DAF is actively looking for ways to financially support and advice in the setting up of

national networks. Support is also available for translation master classes, via specific grant pools, and also in conjunction with other agencies – most recently with BCLT (British Centre for Literary Translation). The Danish Arts Foundation is also backing a Ph.D. student in London who is researching many aspects of Danish-English translation.

Read all about these exciting initiatives and support options at www.danisharts.dk. But

before that, enjoy this issue of Danish Literary Magazine and news of this season’s inspiring works – just waiting to be translated.

Annette Bach EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY Danish Arts Foundation’s Committee for Literary Project Funding www.danisharts.dk

EDITOR

TEXT

DESIGN

Lars Sidenius lsi@kulturstyrelsen.dk

Lotte Kirkeby Hansen

NR2154

TRANSLATION

COVER ILLUSTRATION

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

Paul Larkin

Rasmus Bregnhøi

Søren Beltoft sbe@kulturstyrelsen.dk Lars Theil Münster ltm@kulturstyrelsen.dk

CONTACT US H.C. Andersens Boulevard 2, 1553 Copenhagen V, Denmark Tel. +45 3373 3373, litt@kulturstyrelsen.dk

CONTENTS P. 4

HELLE HELLE P. 6-9 & 12-14

BOOKS IN BRIEF P. 10

DORTHE NORS P.16

DY PLAMBECK P.18

NEW VOICES P. 20

THEIS ØRNTOFT P.22

DANISH COMIC BOOKS P. 30

NIKOLINE WERDELIN P.32

AWARDS P. 34

RECENTLY SOLD P.38

SUPPORT SCHEMES

ANTI DRAMA QUEEN

It takes a special woman to source great drama out of trivial, everyday events. But Helle Helle manages it, seemingly effortlessly. Her superficially eventless works are spellbinding and, in all their absence of plot, deliver more tension than the most twisting and turning crime novel.

Her understated prose is close to stylistic perfection – not least in its dialogue – and captures modern people in superb scenarios, circling around the conflicts that arise from life’s everyday routines. She always leaves the reader to judge the allusions in the text.

As her authorship has progressed, Helle Helle’s key motif has been the depiction of women at the edge of Danish society for whom life has more or less stopped. Thus in her previous novel, Dette burde skrives i nutid (This Should be Written in the Present Tense, 2011), we follow a young woman in a small provincial town. A woman full of self-doubt.

What’s she good at? What does she want? She’s actually doing a course at university, but spends her days flitting between her rented house and Copenhagen, shopping and writing personal songs for special occasions – and dreaming about being an author.

In Helle Helles latest novel, Hvis det er (If it is), a man and woman meet

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It’s the quiet souls to be found in Danish provincial life who retain award winning author Helle Helle’s abiding interest. In book after book, she has distilled her innate minimalism down to a fine art.

The word “masterpiece” seems to find its way into almost all reviews of her work. in a forest. They’re both out jogging.

They both lost their way. It gets dark.

They spend one night in a hut and tell bits of their lives to each other.

Then the dawn comes and they find their way to a house. They spend the next night here. Then they go to a bus stop on a main road. And that’s it. But within this slender frame story, Helle Helle succeeds in encasing two lives and their destinies – masterfully and with elegance.

Helle Helle, born in 1965, debuted in 1993 with the pointillist novel Eksempler på liv (Examples from life), but she first came to prominence with both the novel Rødby-Puttgarden (Rødby-Puttgarden, 2005), that received the Critics Prize, and Ned til hundene (Down to the Dogs, 2008), which was nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize. In 2009, she received the P.O. Enquist Award, whilst her previous novel Dette burde skrives i nutid (This Should be Written in the Present Tense, 2011) gained the Danish Bookshop Association’s

Golden Wreath Prize, not to mention rave reviews from the critics. The newspaper Information said: ‘It goes without saying that Dette burde skrives i nutid (This Should be Written in the Present Tense) is a fantastic novel – yet another slim and nonchalant masterpiece from Helle Helle’s hand.’

“Helle Helle writes minimalistic masterpieces in seemingly simple, compressed prose, yet a prose incredibly full of underlying subtetxts.“ PER OLOV ENQUIST

Hvis det er (If it is) Samleren 2014, 146 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Sofie Voller, sofie_voller@gyldendalgroupagency.dk PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, United Kingdom.

PHOTO: SOFIE AMALIE KLOUGART

DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

HELLE HELLE

“She can’t say exactly what the years had involved. She’d had long temp jobs in a canteen and with a transport firm. Worked on a reception desk. Got a sewing machine and did her own quilt covers. Nearly drowned in them.

She’d also sewed pillowcases in blue and white stripes and repotted succulents in small zinc buckets. She once went all the way to Blokhus. Spent a day by the sea gathering stones and shells. Suddenly getting the notion those stones and shells had to be a collection. For a glass container on her window sill. She bought two live plaice off a fisherman on the beach.

Felt like they were flapping their tails on the bus home. They were disturbingly rigid in the fridge the next day. No way could she flay them. And those shells. They started to smell strange in the plastic bag the week after.”

Extract from Hvis det er (If it is)

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

OUT OF THIS WORLD ‘In his new, beautiful and finely measured novel, Jens Christian Grøndahl proves himself a true successor to Albert Camus and French existentialism.’ Thus wrote Kristeligt Dagblad in 2012 with the publication of Jens Christian Grøndahl’s latest novel – Før vi siger farvel (Before we say goodbye). A work that again revealed Grøndahl as an author with great psychological insight into human emotions. Love between people of different ages, delving into their history, identity and life-choices, is a recurrent theme for Grøndahl, and this is no less true of his most recent novel Jernporten (The Iron Gate). Here we meet a man who, after a turbulent and passionate youth, lives with a feeling of having ended up in a time not his own, with no understanding of its rules and norms, or ability to engage with it.

He’s getting on for sixty, was married then divorced, and has had a few half-hearted relationships. He finds it difficult to give total commitment, which is part of the reason none of his love affairs take firmer root.

He works as a teacher, was reared in a family that traditionally liked to break the mould, and in many ways has worked his way up the social ladder; partly inspired by his German teacher, who was a seminal influence upon him and who steered him towards the arts and literature; thereby revealing an amazing world beyond the mundane suburbs. Thus he discovered certain ideas he felt he could live his life by; so even though he never got the university training he’d dreamed of, he’d always felt that being a schoolteacher was valuable; that he was helping to make the world a better place. But gradually he became more and more disillusioned.

His pupils are more into Facebook than his classes, and he can’t hold their attention – especially not with

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Rainer Maria Rilke, who had once given his own life such direction and core beliefs. But suddenly his life takes a turn, and a new reality penetrates his world: He is asked whether one of his pupils, a Croat called Stanko, might be able to stay with him whilst the pupil’s mother is away on an unavoidable journey – and at a stroke, he is in a place that he can’t fully take in, and where he feels increasingly cut off from reality, more and more as an outside observer; the same with women. Be that as it may, when he decides to celebrate his sixtieth birthday in Rome, he meets a female photographer …

Jens Christian Grøndahl, born 1959,

debuted in 1985 with the novel Kvinden i midten (The woman in the middle), and quite apart from essays, dramas, children’s books etc., has also written novels such as Tavshed i oktober (Silence in October), Lucca (Lucca), Et andet lys (A different light) and Fire dage i marts (Four days in March).

He has won many awards both in Denmark and abroad, including the Prix Jean Monnet de Littérature Européenne in 2007.

JENS CHRISTIAN GRØNDAHL

Jernporten (The Iron Gate) Gyldendal 2014, 300 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Jens Christian Grøndahl, jcg.vad@mail.com.

PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: More than twenty countries.

BOOKS IN BRIEF / FICTION

THE RUIN OF A NOBLEWOMAN

LONE HØRSLEV

Dyrets år (The Year of the Animal) C&K Forlag 2014, 220 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: C&K Forlag, Charlotte Jørgensen, charlotte@ ckforlag.dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Serbia

FASCINATING FAMILY CHRONICLE ‘The novel’s author loves her craft – to be the one who knows past, present and future, knows all secrets, skeletons in cupboards, even what the toys are thinking.

But this storyteller can be forgiven such Olympian pretensions, because Katrine Marie Guldager is in full control of her epic creation. My God she can write.’ Thus Politiken’s ecstatic reviewer, when in 2010 Katrine Marie Guldager published volume one of her ambitious family chronicle.

Ulven (The Wolf) was the first, then Lille hjerte (Little Heart) 2012, then Den ny tid (The New Age) 2013.

Peters død (Peter’s Death) is volume four of her ‘Køge Chronicle’ about a Danish provincial family. The year is 1972, and siblings Leonora and Henry are strongly affected by the

The fate that befell the highborn Marie Grubbe is a well known motif in Danish literature, and with Dyrets år (The Year of the Animal) Lone Hørslev provides a new insight into the story. Marie Grubbe was born at the very top of the social tree, grew up on a wealthy estate, and married the king’s son. But she ended her days as an impoverished alewife in one of Denmark’s furthest outposts.

It’s the winter months of 1666-67, when the 23 year old Marie began to dig her own social and personal grave, that Lone Hørslev chooses to emphasise. Here, Marie Grubbe’s husband is in Norway, and she engages in a passionate affair with the estate’s Cavalry Master, with whom she has been enamoured for some six

months. But when he ends the affair, Marie, in her despair, allows herself to be seduced by her hated sister’s charming husband, and suddenly her life is upside down.

Lone Hørslev, born in 1974, is a graduate from The Danish Academy of Creative Writing and debuted in 2001 with a poetry collection TAK (THANKS). Since then she has published a range of novels and poetry collections, the latest being La’ os (So we’ll just) 2013, about a single mum who seeks peace and order in places that often seem to offer the opposite.

Her novel Sorg og camping (Sorrow and camping) 2010, was described

by Politiken as ‘wildly comical and passionate, all round beautiful prose.’

It follows five people for one day: shop owners Marianne and Jørgen; Jannie who works in their shop; Jørgen’s younger brother Thomas, who’s writing a novel, and his Icelandic wife.

politically turbulent times, marked by a resurgent left wing and heated political debates, partly due to an EU referendum. They each live their parallel lives, with parallel ups and downs, but their relationship changes when Leonora finds their father Peter dead; an event that alters the lives of the whole family forever. Peters død (Peter’s Death) is a novel that engages with some of life’s greatest dilemmas – grief, happiness, family life and human relations.

Katrine Marie Guldager, born in 1966, debuted in 1994 with the poetry collection Dagene skifter hænder (The days change hands) and then wrote a range of books: short stories, novels, poetry and children’s books. Her latest poetry collection is Et sted i verden (A place in the world) (2014). In 2004, she won the Critic’s Prize.

KATRINE MARIE GULDAGER

Peters død (Peter’s death) Lindhardt og Ringhof 2014, 207 pages.

FOREIGN RIGHTS: Busch Agency, Trine Busch, trine@buschagency.dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Germany, Norway, Sweden, United States.

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

HIGHLY IMAGINATIVE SCIENCE NOVEL

HARALD VOETMANN

Alt under månen (Everything beneath the moon) Gyldendal 2014, 168 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Leonhardt & Høier Literary Agency, Monica Gram, monica@leonhardt-hoier.dk

‘Nothing less than sublime.’

‘Outrageously thought provoking and superb.’ ‘Just damn good writing.’

‘A firework display of sensual excess and mysterious events.’ For once, the reviewers were unanimous when one of Danish literature’s most cerebral minds, Harald Voetmann, saw his novel Alt under månen (Everything beneath the moon) hit the streets earlier this year. A novel dark as night, festering, but also hilarious and visionary, tells of three nobles who are also scientists and mystics; namely the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and his two assistants. During a year at the end of the 1500s, we follow the events on the fog-shrouded island of Hven, where these three men seek to solve the great mysteries of the universe in their underground

observatory Stjerneborg – when, that is, they are not obsessing about dreadful portents, death, sex or romance. With a Renaissance backdrop and huge advances in the arts and medicine, they engage in a mighty struggle to balance our bodily fluids – the eternal struggle to control nature – until Tycho Brahe gets into a serious tangle with the King, packs his gold proboscis and seeks sanctuary with the occultist Rudolf II of Prague.

Harald Voetmann, born 1978, debuted in 2000 with the essay collection Kapricer (Caprices). His big breakthrough novel was Vågen (Awake) 2010, based on Pliny the Elder, which earned him a nomination for the Nordic Council Literature Prize.

A FATEFUL TALE Den endeløse sommer (The Endless Summer) tells of a group of people who, in the midst of a reckless love drama, discover that anything is possible. And fateful. In a few months, they have a lifetime of experiences, but death arrives to divide them. Central to the novel is a love story between a mother and her daughter’s friend and they experience such ferocious passion that it binds all the characters into an intriguing sort of ‘destiny-chorus’. A destiny whose hand reaches far beyond the summer in which the events unfold.

A time like no other in their lives: this ‘endless summer.’

Under the pseudonym ‘Madame Nielsen’, one of Denmark most cutting-edge authors has added

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yet another voice and style to an already rich register. The author, born 1963 and better known as ‘Claus Beck-Nielsen’ and ‘Nielsen’, was nominated for the 2014 Nordic Council Literature Prize for the novel Mine møder med De Danske Forfattere (My encounters with Danish authors), 2013, which Weekendavisen describes thus: ‘Nielsen’s new novel is perfectly composed, funny and gives strange and rather unflattering portrayals of a number of Danish authors (…)

Brilliant and very entertaining.’

In 2006 he was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize for Selvmordsaktionen (The Suicide Mission) published in 2005.

MADAME NIELSEN

Den endeløse sommer (The Endless Summer) Gyldendal 2014, 192 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Leonhardt & Høier Literary Agency, Anneli Høier, anneli@leonhardt-hoier.dk PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Norway, Sweden.

BOOKS IN BRIEF / FICTION

GRIEF IN THAILAND

KAMILLA HEGA HOLST

På træk (Street cruising) Rosinante 2014, 195 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Sofie Voller, sofie_voller@gyldendalgroupagency.dk

Kaya, a newly divorced author, and owner of a slipped disc, travels to Thailand. She has left her children at home with her ex and his new lover, certain they’d be happier that way. Though exiled, Kaya’s maternal grandfather, who’s lived in Thailand for years, has always been the rock around which their divided family gathered – even now when the Thai woman whom he’d hired to look after his dying wife is his partner.

He lives in an apartment complex in the highly salacious Pattaya area with its hooker bars, massage parlours, casual sex and “money will buy you anything scene” and Kaya, he decides, can use her time there as a form of convalescence by writing his life story… På træk (Street cruising) Kamilla Hega Holst’s

novel about marriage, parenthood and betrayal also paints a sharp and revealing picture of Thailand and its immigrants in her clear and lucid prose.

Hega Holst, born 1973, has published two children’s books and two adult novels – her latest being Sort (Black) of which Berlingske said: ‘Quite simply brilliant (…) Kamilla Hega Holst skewers modern consumer fetishism in terse prose that makes very creative use of documentary materials: the father’s health diary, his nerdy life project, letters to newspapers, family photos and travel cards. Everything’s so clammy, scathing and troubling. In other words: a must read!’

THE APARTMENT CO-OP AS HUMAN MENAGERIE ‘Stine Pilgaard has written the winter’s must read (…) I’m so taken with her debut, I’m going to read it again!’ Thus wrote Weekendavisen’s reviewer, when Stine Pilgaard debuted last year. And it’s obvious that many other readers felt the same. The novel has seen no less than eight print runs and now Stine Pilgaard has completed her second novel Lejlighedssange (Songs for special occasions), a novel about people with their own ‘thing’, about streamof-consciousness-talking, comfort breasts, love and time. Here we meet the inhabitants of an apartment co-op, all bound together by their ownership share, co-op weekend projects, communal parties and internet problems – as seen through the eyes of the narrator’s funny,

keen-eyed and affectionate gaze. And the narrator meets them all, because she does horoscopes, party songs and ditties. Her room fills up constantly with residents as special occasions come and go: with Grandma and Ruth who met in a landscape of cows and churches, with Thomas who’s married to a medievalist saga expert, and Elizabeth who wants a song for her husband’s birthday, even though he’s been in a coma for two years. Stine Pilgaard, born 1984, debuted in 2012 with the critically acclaimed Min mor siger (My mother says) – an original, rather absurd universe of mutual incomprehension replete with wonderful dialogue, which was nominated for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s Best Novel Award.

STINE PILGAARD

Lejlighedssange (Songs for special occasions) Rosinante 2014, 175 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Sofie Voller, sofie_voller@gyldendalgroupagency.dk PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Iceland, Norway.

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

“Nors’ writing doesn’t just observe the details of life – online searches, laundry, fantasies, conversations with semi-strangers, compulsions – it offers a marvelous, truthful take on how these details illustrate our souls.” (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY). “Beautiful faceted haunting stories …

Dorthe Nors is fantastic … a rising star of Danish letters.” (JUNOT DÍAZ).

“Unsettling and poetic … Some pieces, like one about a four-pound tomato, are oddly beautiful; others are brilliantly disturbing.”

(NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW). “In this collection of stories, Danish fiction comes off a little like Danish furniture, spare and sublime.

Author Dorthe Nors knows how to capture the smallest moments and sculpt them into the unforgettable.” (OPRAH). “In a span of two pages, she is able to both build and unmake a character, achieving the same complexity that other writers require entire novels to establish.” (BOOKLIST). “The result reads like a master class in compression, precision and economy of language.” (STAR TRIBUNE). “Reading Dorthe Nors’ work, one is reminded of the thrills and dangers of living. Memories, laughter, a gesture: everything casts a shadow, meaningful or mysterious. These stories prove that no loss is too small, and each moment counts.” (YIYUN LI). “Horror and comedy both require timing, and Dorthe Nors has it. The stories are less meditations on human savagery than riffs on it, understated monologues of everydayness through which the horror surfaces like a joke. Blink and you might miss the punch line, whether it’s a suitcase full of body parts or a more ordinary dismemberment.” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE).

TIME ON HER SIDE

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DORTHE NORS

IT DEFIES ALL LOGIC THAT A DANISH AUTHOR SHOULD SUCCEED IN THE USA, BEFORE MAKING SERIOUS HEADWAY AT HOME. BUT THAT’S WHAT DORTHE NORS DID. SHE CROSSED THE ATLANTIC WITH HER NOVELS UNDER HER ARM, MADE HER BREAKTHROUGH, THEN BROUGHT HOME THE BACON.

written, concluding by saying that Dorthe Nors had found her ‘voice’ with these short stories. These fifteen short stories were also praised for their ability to create a whole universe in a few pages – only to then break down those same dimensions. Their singular deep, dark, but also humorous, tone was also highly praised.

But despite the great critical response to Kantslag (Karate Chop), it only saw one relatively modest print run.

After that, not much happened. Until, that is, Dorthe Nors got some of the short stories translated to English and began sending them to newspapers and journals in the US. And it soon

‘Dorthe Nors is a new author on the block and has time on her side.

Perhaps that’s why she actually dares to dive in at life’s deep end.

No fear of flying or the existential PHOTO: AGNETE SCHLICHTKRULL abyss here, and a symbolism transpired that they were more than that pushes language close to the interested in publishing them. The breaking point. There’s something New Yorker too. Way to go! epic about Dorthe Nors’ writing. And she has huge potential.’ Thus wrote So the ball was well and truly Weekendavisen’s reviewer in 2005, on rolling in the USA, where Kantslag the publication of Dorthe Nors’ novel (Karate Chop) was published in Ann Lie (Ann Lie). A few years would 2014 by Graywolf Press, and then pass though before this potential was republished in Denmark, where it realised and, ironically, Dorthe Nors has sold five print runs. Graywolf had to take a detour via the USA also bought the rights to Dorthe before Danish readers ‘dug’ her talent.

Nors’ novels Dage (Days) and Minna mangler et øvelokale (Minna needs a Dorthe Nors’ short story collection practice room).

Kantslag (Karate Chop) came out in Denmark in 2008 to some fine The short stories in Kantslag (Karate reviews, amongst other places in Chop) depict skewed lives. Take the Berlingske, which described it as Christian civil servant at the Ministry challenging, empathic and well

of Foreign Affairs for example who coverts to Buddhism; a home nurse who orders tomatoes for delivery but will not take that last one that pushes it over a kilo; then the apparently run of the mill husband who nurtures a passion for female killers … Many characters are balanced on the quivering edge of something just about to happen – a shakiness picked up by the reader who’s never sure where the story is going but gives in to the effortlessly flowing narrative.

Dorthe Nors, born 1970, debuted in 2001 with the novel Soul (Soul).

Then the novels Stormesteren (The Great Master) 2003 and Ann Lie (Ann Lie) 2005, and in 2008 a short story collection Kantslag (Karate Chop). Then the novella Dage (Days) in 2010, and Minna mangler et øvelokale (Minna needs a practice room) 2013. The latter is a novel about the forty year old Minna, a composer writing a sonata, but finding it hard to find her soundscape. And anyway she’s no practice room. In fact, there’s a few things she needs.

Like a baby, a true calling in life and her own ‘voice’ … “Sharp and funny satire,” said Weekendavisen, whilst Information’s reviewer said it was the funniest Danish novel she’d read in a long time.

Kantslag (Karate Shop) Samleren 2008, 147 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Ahlander Agency, Astri von Arbin Ahlander, astri@ahlanderagency.com. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, United Kingdom, United States.

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

THE TERRIBLE STATE WE’RE IN

FACE TO FACE WITH THE PAST

‘In an age when most crime novels plump for entertainment, Elsebeth Egholm insists on a searing note of indignation at the sorry state were in – and it’s invigorating,’ wrote Politiken as Elsebeth Egholm’s eighth novel on journalist Dicte Svendsen hit the streets. In Kød og blod (Flesh and blood) Dicte struggles to regain her sense of dignity and self-worth after being raped. But one day she detects a possible link in a series of murders suddenly occurring all around her: A young, promising student is found raped and butchered in the most bestial of ways and it soon transpires that she is neither the first, nor the last. Elsebeth Egholm flings Dicte Svendsen into a desperate hunt for the suspect in this breakneck novel, not only about our will to survive but also our need for justice.

Criminal psychologist Katrine Wraa and her partner, detective Jens Høgh, await their first child. Katrine is just back from suspension when the police get word that Danish murderer and drug dealer Jim Hellberg has been spotted in the Caribbean. This is no ‘yeah another scumbag, whatever’ for Katrine Wraa. For this Hellberg guy made her kill someone in selfdefence when she was involved in busting the gang he led. Before she knows it, Katrine is caught up in an international power struggle in the war against drugs.

Elsebeth Egholm’s debut novel was De frie kvinders klub (The free women club)1999, and her first Dicte Svendsen novel Skjulte fejl og mangler (Hidden faults and deficiencies) was published in 2002.

ELSEBETH EGHOLM

Kød og blod (Flesh and blood), Politikens Forlag 2014, 393 pages.

FOREIGN RIGHTS: Lars Ringhof Agency, Esthi Kunz, esthi@ringhof.dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden, United Kingdom.

THE SUICIDE BOMBER IN THE AMUSEMENT PARK When a suicide bomber self-detonates under one of Tivoli’s most popular rides, Denmark loses its innocence.

No group claims the attack and, after seven month of intense investigation, the police have no real leads. But out of the blue, senior police officer Lene Jensen sees a possible connection between the Tivoli outrage and a fatality at Nørreport Station. Along with specialist PI Michael Sander, she attempts to solve the mystery and discovers that some people know more than they have revealed – and a new attack on Denmark may be imminent. Gengældelsen (An eye for an eye) is the follow up to Steffen Jacobsen’s much praised 2013 thriller Trofæ (Trophy), described

by Weekendavisen as containing ‘intelligent action’.

Author Steffen Jacobsen, who debuted with the thriller Passageren (The Passenger) 2008, is also an orthopaedic surgeon.

STEFFEN JACOBSEN

Gengældelsen (An eye for an eye) Peoples’Press 2014, 413 sider. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Peoples’Press, Lise Nielsen, lise. nielsen@artpeople.dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States.

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In 2010, co-authors and partners in real life Jeanette Øbro and Ole Tornberg won Politiken’s ‘Big Crime Novel’ competition with Skrig under vand (A cry from the depths),which Politiken described as ‘A refined crime debut that never lets you go.’

Det norske job (The Norwegian job) is the fourth in the Katrine Wraa series that also includes Djævlens ansigt (Face of the Devil) and Evas sidste nat (Eva’s last night).

ØBRO & TORNBERG

Det norske job (The Norwegian job) Politikens Forlag 2014, 320 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Lars Ringhof Agency, Esthi Kunz, esthi@ringhof.dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland.

BOOKS IN BRIEF /CRIME

SO NOT A DETECTIVE

WHEN IS A SUICIDE NOT A SUICIDE IN ‘SUICIDE FOREST’?

A young Dane is found dead in Japan’s most famous Suicide Forest.

The Japanese police very quickly assume it’s just one more suicide, but when the young man’s father receives an anonymous letter suggesting the opposite, police supt. Daniel Trokic is sent east to investigate. His encounter with Japanese culture is to say the least challenging. But despite the difficulties, he soon realises that something is totally wrong and that the young Dane’s murder leads back to one of the most awful killings in Japan’s history.

Inger Wolf debuted in 2006 with a crime novel Sort sensommer (A dark end to summer), which won the Danish Crime Academy’s debut prize the same year as well as media accolades like – ‘A really brilliant Danish crime novel’ and ‘A top class cop novel’. Det perfekte sted at dø (The perfect place to die) is her seventh book with Daniel Trokic as the main character.

On the ‘down-at-heel’ holiday island of Fuerteventura, a little boy is found dead in the boot of a car. Local police try to hush the story up via a cynical ruse, but the old hermit, Erhard, who sees more than most, latches on to the mystery with an unshakeable determination. The dead little boy forces the self-appointed and highly unlikely detective (who’s a finger short, hears voices and drinks too much Lumumba) to drag himself back to life, and it seems those voices were worth listening to. But how can an old duffer who’s turned his back on the world and all that “web this, mobile that”, chat boards and texting, solve a modern-day mystery that goes way beyond the little island where he lives?

Thomas Rydahl, who attended The Danish Academy of Creative Writing in Copenhagen, has published a number of short stories. The thriller Eremitten (The Recluse) is his debut novel.

THOMAS RYDAHL

Eremitten (The Recluse) Forlaget Bindslev 2014, 520 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Busch Agency, Trine Busch, trine@ buschagency.dk. SOLD TO: Croatia, BosniaHercegovina, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia.

DEPARTMENT Q Most crime thriller fans will be delighted to hear that the sixth book in the Carl Mørck-series will be out soon. This time events centre on the small Danish island in the Baltic – Bornholm, where Carl Mørck becomes entangled in the tragic case of a lively young girl who disappears from high school and is found hanging from a tree. It proves to be a tough and mysterious case and Carls trusty sidekicks Rose, Assad and the newly arrived Gordon face serious and unexpected challenges, when underlying issues and secrets threaten to tear the team apart.

Jussi Adler-Olsen debuted as a fiction author in 1997 with Alfabethuset (The Alphabet House). 2007 saw his first Carl Mørck and Department Q novel – Kvinden i buret (The woman in the cage – USA title: The Keeper of Lost Causes), which Booklist described thus: ‘Adler-Olsen’s prose is superior to Larsson’s, his tortures are less discomforting , and he has a sense of humour,’ whilst The Times called him the new “it” of Nordic Noir.’

INGER WOLF

Det perfekte sted at dø (The perfect place to die) Peoples’ Press 2014, 336 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Peoples’Press, Lise Nielsen, lise. nielsen@artpeople.dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden.

JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN

Den grænseløse (Beyond All Limits) Politiken 2014, 480 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Politikens Forlag, Nya Guldberg, nya.guldberg@jppol.dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: More than twenty countries.

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

Denne dag, et liv En

A RARE LINDGREN BIOGRAPHY

Astrid Lindgren-biografi

Jens Andersen Gyldendal

JENS ANDERSEN

Denne dag, et liv – en biografi om Astrid Lindgren (This day, a life – a biography of Astrid Lindgren), Gyldendal 2014, 350 pages.

FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Jenny Thor, jenny_thor@gyldendalgroupagency. dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: China, Germany, Norway, United Kingdom, United States.

It may seem odd, but this biography Denne dag, et liv (This day, a life) is a rare event in coverage of children’s favourite Astrid Lindgren. The book, which is based on previously closed sources, letters and diaries from Astrid Lindgren’s life, is the product of close collaboration with Lindgren’s daughter and the director of the society that looks after her estate. And author Jens Andersen’s work diverges quite markedly from the Lindgren approved life published several years before her death in 2002. In fact Astrid Lindgren was extremely reticent where details of her life were concerned and what little she has told, Jens Andersen can now reveal, was far from the full story. For instance, the story of her marriage and the

‘lovechild’ she bore out of wedlock with the editor of a newspaper on which she worked whilst still young – a child she had to place into care in Copenhagen.

Jens Andersen, born 1955, is a former literature editor and reviewer at Berlingske and has written a range of biographies on Danish authors, Queen Margrethe II and H.C. Andersen. ‘In truth, the year’s most remarkable biography,’ wrote Die Welt, whilst the Los Angeles Times called it ‘a masterful and comprehensive biography.’

A WAR ODYSSEY As a Middle East correspondent, Puk Damsgård has travelled extensively through war-torn Syria – and Hvor solen græder. En fortælling fra Syrien (Where even the sun weeps.

Tales from Syria) is her scary and gripping personal portrait of a war that has killed more than 150,000 people, with millions more forced to flee their homes. She describes being smuggled across the border to report from a country in a state of collapse.

Her book is built around a series of riveting portraits of the Syrians she met and followed, including ‘Nour’ who joined the Syrian rebellion, but now sees it as her worst nightmare.

‘Puk Damsgård is a world class war correspondent. Anyone who watches the news on television knows that.

Her dispatches from the Middle East

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are so gripping and informative that she counts as one of the most cutting edge correspondents from a group of incisive Danish journalists reporting from abroad in recent years,’ wrote Politiken’s reviewer, who describes her book as just as unmissable as her reports and concludes by posing an often unspoken question when a correspondent goes to war: ‘Are her portraits of war worth the risk to her life?’

Puk Damsgård, born 1978, trained as a journalist and since 2011 has been DR’s Middle East correspondent, based firstly in Beirut and now Cairo.

She’s also author of two books – De Renes Land (Land of the Pure) 2009, and Ulvehjerter (Wolfhearts) 2011.

PUK DAMSGÅRD

Hvor solen græder (Where even the sun weeps). En fortælling fra Syrien (Tales from Syria), Politiken Publishers 2014, 265 pages.

FOREIGN RIGHTS: Politiken Publishers, Nya Guldberg, nya.guldberg@jppol.dk

BOOKS IN BRIEF / NON FICTION

ANDERS BO RASMUSSEN

ANDERS BO RASMUSSEN

H

I KRIG FOR LINCOLN

I KRIG FOR LINCOLN DANSK BLOD I DEN AMERIKANSKE BORGERKRIG

H

H MED FORORD AF TOM BUK-SWIENTY

ANDERS BO RASMUSSEN

I krig for Lincoln. Dansk blod i Den Amerikanske Borgerkrig, (Fighting for Lincoln.

Danish sacrifice in the American Civil War), Information Publishers, 2014, 280 pages.

FOREIGN RIGHTS: Informations Forlag, Mette Jokumsen, jokum@information.dk

CONFLICTING FATES IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR In the mid-1800s, Denmark was in the grip of America Fever. More than a tenth of the Danish population left for the ‘Promised Land’ in search of a better life. In his book I krig for Lincoln Dansk blod i Den Amerikanske Borgerkrig (Fighting for Lincoln. Danish sacrifice in the American Civil War), Anders Bo Rasmussen tells the extraordinary story of a number of Danes who ‘went West’ and who, in different ways, became embroiled in the bloody war. Using diaries, letters and other unique source material, he describes everyday life and life at the front for these men – some of them serving in the Scandinavian Regiment – where their battle fervour and newly forged American patriotism was gradually eroded, to be replaced by pessimism,

despondency and homesickness. But the book also paints the bigger picture, providing an insight into the political machinations at work in the Civil War in the context of American slavery.

Anders Bo Rasmussen, born 1978, is a lecturer in American Studies and holds a PhD in journalism. Amongst other things, he was the researcher for Danish author Tom Buk-Swienty’s books on the 1864 Dano-German war. Tom Buk-Swienty draws parallels between the American Civil War and this Danish/German border war, which understandably was a burning issue for many Danish emigrants who were forced to follow events on the home front from the far shores of America.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION ‘Revealing, shocking and well researched reading,’ said JyllandsPosten on Klaus Wivel’s book Den sidste nadver. En rejse blandt de efterladte kristne i den arabiske verden (The Last Supper – amongst the abandoned Christians of the Arab World), where he, in documentary fashion, describes the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

Several newspapers hailed this book and its subject as long overdue and, since its publication, the situation seems to have worsened. The book’s springboard was Klaus Wivel’s open letter to the then Danish foreign affairs minister. Wivel asked what was going to be done about the persecution of Christians in the Arab world – there was no reply.

So he went to the West Bank, Gaza,

Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq to witness for himself one of the major human rights violations of our time, and his account of a cowed people, overwhelmed by a dominant Muslim culture - priests whose churches have been razed, parents who have lost their children, and citizens who feel alien in their own countries and want out - makes heart-breaking yet riveting current affairs reading.

Klaus Wivel, born 1971, is an expert on the Middle East and is presently USA correspondent for Weekendavisen, where he was once literary editor.

He has also authored Næsten intet – en jødisk kritik af Søren Kierkegaard (Love not thy neighbour? – a Jewish critique of Søren Kierkegaard).

KLAUS WIVEL

Den sidste nadver. En rejse blandt de efterladte kristne i den arabiske verden (The Last Supper - amongst the abandoned Christians of the Arab World). Kristeligt Dagblad Publishers 2013, 318 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Kristeligt Dagblad Publishers, Pernille Follmann Ballebye, ballebye@k.dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Norway, Sweden.

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE AND WAR “Dy Plambeck has a keen awareness of the huge canvas she paints in her abundance of strange and moving stories.”

BERLINGSKE

Thus far, humour has been the cornerstone of Dy Plambeck’s authorship. First of all with her inventive prose-poetry in Buresøfortællinger (Buresø tales), in the story of colourful Aunty Lilian in Texas’ Rose (The Rose of Texas) and then in the novel Gudfar (Godfather) about a Biker called Uffe. But in her new novel Mikael (Mikael), about Danish soldiers in Afghanistan, she shifts tone with young journalist Becky’s understated yet discerning portrayal of her encounter with war.

Becky travels to Afghanistan to write reports about everyday life at the front. Here she strikes up a friendship with two soldiers Mikael and Jan. A romance develops between Becky and Mikael. The story then moves from Afghanistan to Sardinia, where they attend a wedding, then to Copenhagen, where Mikael tries

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to throw off his war garb and enter civilisation again. A landscape tapestry adorns this deceptively simple plot and colours the emotional changes at play.

Mikael is a combat novel about killing and love. It probes peoples’ underlying beliefs and conveys its readers across a terrain that is both physical and psychological. But, above all, it seeks to voice a language for that void-zone we call war.

According to Dy Plambeck, we lack to some extent a language that can express both the nature of war and the nature of humans at war – that it may in fact be possible for a person to be a warrior without mentally disintegrating.

Dy Plambeck, born 1980, graduated from The Danish Academy of Creative Writing in 2004 and

debuted with the 2005 narrativepoetry ensemble Buresø-fortællinger (Buresø tales). Then came a range of children’s books and two novels – Texas’ Rose (The Rose of Texas) 2008, which Weekendavisen described as – ‘a gobsmacking achievement: funny and moving (and consciously unsentimental), well written and deftly composed, you’ll read it in big greedy chunks,’ and then Gudfar (Godfather) 2011, which left Kristeligt Dagblad’s reviewer ecstatic: ‘It’s almost too good to be true. It’s so tenderly written, so genuinely moving and astonishing that I know I’ve not read the like of it in a long, long time. The novel is literary portraiture at its best.’

Mikael (Mikael) Gyldendal 2014, 272 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Jenny Thor, jenny_thor@gyldendalgroupagency.dk.

PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Norway, Sweden.

DY PLAMBECK

In her new book, partly inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Dy Plambeck, sends a young journalist deep into the dark heart of war – to Danish soldiers in Afghanistan.

PHOTO: ISAK HOFFMEYER

‘

The enemy is a human being. If I don’t know him intimately, I can’t decide whether or not to kill him. The enemy think’s like I do. That thought never leaves me. I look at the enemy without hatred. I do my utmost to seek him out in the frenzy of war and kill him. I expect nothing other from him than he will also seek me out to kill me. If I’m stuck too long in camp, fear of the enemy takes hold. The more time I spend out beyond those walls, close to the enemy, the more I can accept his proximity. In camp my fear looms over me. How long can I keep being that lucky? Is my number up?

Deep within me there’s a hole. That’s where my breakpoint hides. I’ve seen the fear in the eyes of some of my comrades in our platoon. They’ve retreated to their hole. Now they can’t get out of it. When fear kicks in during the firefight, I try to look right through it. Way over to the far side of it. I can still fear specific things. But it’s more like – OK fine, I’m going to die, but I must deal with this split-second situation first. The most vital thing becomes doing what I came to do no matter what. Then I will always be the winner. Whether I live or die.

Extract from MIKAEL (MIKAEL)

’

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

LINE-MARIA LÅNG ‘In terms of language, it’s an absolute treat, both when it gets serious, and when it’s funny. Lång can paint a character in a few words and bring them alive; with Artiskokhjerte (Artichoke Heart) she has taken a giant stride in her authorship, which I really look forward to following.’ Thus wrote Kristeligt Dagblad’s reviewer in response to Line-Maria Lång’s first novel about Lisa, who has her own unique way of remembering things. Lisa went to University at

15 and can recite the first 500 digits of Pi by heart. But she only knows Sweden is below Norway because her mother told her that her Swedish lover always wants to be underneath. Lisa gets her love for words, numbers, and music from her French father, but he left when she was 10 years old; now she’s decided to go to Paris to find him. But it’s not just her dad she finds, but a much older boyfriend/ father figure with the nickname ‘Le Monstre’ …

NE NOVEL NE VOIC

Line-Maria Lång, born 1982, debuted in 2009 with her short story collection Rottekonge (King Rat).

Artiskokhjerte (Artichoke Heart) is her first novel.

Artiskokhjerte (Artichoke Heart) Rosinante 2014, 198 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Leonhardt & Høier Literary Agency, Monica Gram, monica@leonhardt-hoier.dk

EXTRACT FROM ARTISKOKHJERTE (ARTICHOKE HEART)

‘Remember what we talked about,’ mum said, as we waited in departures. To bear in mind I was a lovechild, that dad wasn’t to be trusted, that I was a musical prodigy who needed at least eight hours sleep. Don’t waffle, but don’t be a statue either.

This lovechild thing was an old old refrain of mum’s.

Even though she generally avoided talking about dad, she’d often told me how they’d clasped hands over her bump and guessed who I’d take after. Mum’s eyes, his sense of direction, her sensitivity, music from both of them.

For the whole pregnancy, she had played a bamboo sax to me. A small flute type instrument that she still sometimes carried in her breast pocket.

‘Oh nearly forgot!’ Mum handed me a slip with the shrink’s phone number on it.

‘If you get a wobble,’ she said.

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A YOUNG MUSIC AND MATHS SAVANT AND AN AUTHOR ON THE VERGE OF A TRAGICOMIC BREAKDOWN – THESE ARE JUST SOME OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE WORKS OF DEBUT NOVELISTS THIS YEAR.

NEW VOICES

EW LISTS, EW CES

EXTRACT FROM ISLAND (ICELAND) ‘The woman behind the airport desk smiled. An advert smile, I thought to myself, that would sell toothpaste or toilet paper, or whatever, between heaven and hell. I took out my credit card, the happy reunion dancing into my mind. The kids running towards me, jumping into my arms, hugging me to the point of knockdown, as you stand there a bit apart, looking on with tears in your eyes. I look at you and feel the tears welling up in my own eyes, even though I never cry, because you always get there before me and cut off my tears with your own. Then we embrace and I say we’ll be all right.

We’ll be all right, I say and look into your eyes, but of course it’s not over yet.

Your face breaks and crumples, lips tremble, and I hear you whisper: You idiot, you total idiot, as you struggle out of my arms.”

PETER HØJRUP ‘Vibrant language, real emotion, well-judged pathos and caustic humour. Peter Højrups brilliant Island (Iceland) has it all.’ That’s how Jyllands-Posten announced Peter Højrup’s debut novel to the world. The main character is an author, who is both privately and professionally on the verge of a breakdown. When we meet him, he’s on a plane bound for Iceland, and weaving in and out of his tapestry of thoughts, is his short odyssey when he attended a literary awards ceremony as a nominee, a scathing satire on Denmark’s literary Leben.

But comic irony and the petty squabbles and jealousies of the Literati are leavened by a moving tale of true love and loss of love, pulling off the remarkable trick of being both very funny, caustic, full of passionate social comment and a life-in-crisis novel.

Peter Højrup, born 1974, debuted in 2001 with the poetry collection Så vil jeg hellere være en sø (Then I’d rather be a lake). Island (Iceland) is his debut novel.

Island (Iceland) Basilisk 2014, 211 pages. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Basilisk, Peter Højrup, admin@basilisk.dk

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

This night, this year in a place amongst all her atoms the person they called my mother died.

It’s said she was still singing as they cut her up.

It’s said that oil dripped from her liver.

Or it’s said that she fell through days and nights until the river at the very bottom conveyed her corpse into the jungle.

It’s said, and this is how truth emerges.

I look at her skeleton inside the rock of amber by my bed the sky pales over the rooftops.

Then the sun appears.

Extract from

DIGTE 2014 (POEMS 2014) 20

THEIS ØRNTOFT

THEIS ØRNTOFT

Digte 2014 (Poems 2014), Gyldendal 2014, 63 pp. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Sofie Voller, sofie_voller@ gyldendalgroupagency.dk

Theis Ørntoft, born 1984, graduated from the The Danish Academy of Creative Writing in 2009 and debuted the same year with the poetry collection Yeahsuiten (The Yeah Suite), for which he was awarded one of Denmark’s most prestigious debutant prizes. Ørntoft’s most recent poetry collection Digte 2014 (Poems 2014) brought him the Michael Strunge Award and great praise from a unanimous body of reviewers. ‘A seminal work in the last decade of Danish poetry.’ wrote Information’s reviewer and continued: ‘It is extremely good, anyway, but when Digte 2014 (Poems 2014) really gets into its stride it becomes ridiculously good; incredibly assured in its style and presentation and not a word out of place, unfailing in its narrative flow, lunatic in its mixture of laughter and despair. And especially in its genuinely new way of locating these two concepts in the same space.’

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

EVERY IS POSS 22

DANISH COMIC BOOKS

YTHING S SIBLE

For many decades the Danish comic book scene was dominated by foreign album series but now Danish comic books and graphic novels are flourishing, and in a huge variety of shapes, colours and formats; and not just in schoolboy bedrooms.

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE There’s hardly a home in Denmark that doesn’t have at least one copy of a Tintin, Asterix or Lucky Luke somewhere on a dusty back shelf.

The Danish comic books market was

awash with translated foreign titles in the 1970s and 80s. Then things went quiet for a while until Manga books took kids’ rooms by storm in the 2000s.

And now established Danish publishers, which once issued classic foreign 48 page albums, have passed on the baton to small indie publishers, much to the delight of many Danish comic book aficionados.

‘Mikkel Sommer has a broad, atmospheric style with flowing imagery; wording is taciturn and the approach is clearly inspired by both Manga and animations.

His drawings are never ‘showy’ and he understands that it’s always best to let the image tell the story. (…)

De Gale (The Crazies) is a great success.’ Nummer 9, Web magazine.

Indeed some trade experts are calling this an artistic Golden Age for Danish comic books. The traditional comic book format has been exploded and

MIKKEL SOMMER ET AL. DE GALE. (THE CRAZIES)

suddenly everything is possible: square formats; pen-strokes; themes that can neither be termed funny nor adventure, and then page lengths that can go (way) beyond the conventional 48 pages.

FREE FORM This tide-turn means it’s now almost de rigueur to use comic books as the forum for techniques and motifs that were the traditional preserve of novels. In other words, Danish comic book culture is moving towards ‘fine’ literature and is set to become an even more expressive genre than it was before. So even though Danish 131

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COMIC BOOKS newspapers still carry the flag for the classic cartoon strip (see the portrait of Denmark’s uncrowned Cartoon Queen Nikoline Werdelin), and publishers make a mint from bound and gift wrapped cartoon strips in the run up to Christmas, there are far more alternative, and exciting, graphic strands being produced by Danish art studios.

‘Free form’ means of course the genre is far more accessible but this also creates challenges for the expanded readership. Gone are the days when buying a comic book just meant a stroll down to your nearest bookshop

to get the 20th edition of your favourite strip. In fact this move away from the classic album straitjacket, has made Danish cartoonists much wealthier, perhaps because they’ve

‘A brilliant Danish comic book debut. A vibrant youthful work that strikes pure, sensitive tones and not just idealistic but cocksure in its worldview. This is both a weakness and a strength, but mainly the latter. Mikkel Ørsted Sauzet punches home his debut with talent, drive and bravery to burn. With Aske (Ashes) he’s created a brutal, searing graphic tale.’ Nummer 9, Web magazine.

MIKKEL ØRSTED SAUZET ASKE (ASHES)

‘The raw, blue grey tone of the drawings is about as far from John Wayne as you can get. But this Jeans and Boots ‘femiwestern’ comic fantasy is, in its own way, a weird and witty fable on gender, simulation and the intimate ‘partnership’ between cliché and erotic fantasy, which is as tenacious as that between a cowboy and his horse.’ Politiken RIKKE VILLADSEN ET KNALD TIL (BANG BANG – THANK YOU M’AM)

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

The young illustrator Mikkel Sommer is a good example of this. He has illustrated children/teen author Kim Fupz Aakeson’s twenty year old classic De Gale (The Crazies), in which everyone over 25 loses their memory and goes mad. Thomas Mikkelsen (winner of the Ping Award for best Danish Debut 2014), is another example. He uses his Troldmændene fra Vestmannaeyjar (The Trolls from the Westman Islands) to retell and reinterpret an Icelandic legend in a terse, Saga style. Søren Glosimodt Mosdal also leans heavily on Nordic history in Fimbulvinter (Fimbulwinter) and his tale of Viking Chieftain Erik the Red, whereas Palle Schmidt with his tight, raw thriller Stiletto is more inspired by American

Huh?

‘Stiletto (Stiletto) is as exciting as any Dashiell Hammett novel and also a brilliant portrait of a man and police force in a state of collapse. But the book doesn’t fall into the trap of making moral judgements, or give the main character a sheen of heroic glamour, as can too often be the case with Hollywood’s hardboiled crime films (…) You might call Stiletto hard boiled, neo-noir or pulp fiction.

Or you might just call it sheer class!’ Nummer 9, Web magazine.

PALLE SCHMIDT. STILETTO (STILETTO)

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been schooled in a much broader international comic book culture.

And also because ‘Olde World’ publishers are no longer the genre’s lightning conductor, but rather, it’s the artists themselves who follow their dream, creating smaller works of art that can go in a myriad of directions.

COMIC BOOKS

‘Written and visual skills are brought to fantastic new heights in Rikke Bakman’s childhood memoir Glimt (Glimpse), Denmark’s first full-blown comic book autobiography (…). Rikke Bakman is up there with her role models such as Moomin creator Tove Jansson and Peanuts artist Charles M. Schultz.’ Berlingske RIKKE BAKMAN. GLIMT (GLIMPSE)

TV and film noir. Meanwhile Mikkel Ørsted Sauzet’s strangely moving pen stroke ‘Bic Dogma’ tour-de-force Aske (Ashes) refuses to be categorised, with its mute portrayal of voodoo, barbarity and people trafficking and the 1700s slave revolt on Haiti. This won him the Best Danish Debut 2013 Ping Award run by ‘Nummer 9’ web magazine, the Danish Comic Book Society and Copenhagen Comics festival.

‘The runic alphabet had its angular form so that it could be cut into wood or stone. Søren Gloismodt Mosdal’s gnarled drawings have a similar visual effect. As if they were done with a chisel. And they work superbly in Fimbulvinter (…) A wonderful export item.’ Ekstra Bladet.

SØREN GLOSIMODT MOSDAL. FIMBULVINTER (FIMBULWINTER)

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

OUT OF THE BOY’S ROOM In the classic albums of yore, the main character was usually a daring boy, or do-or-die young man who would think nothing of climbing a tree to defuse a bomb. Which is why of course they were primarily

a feature of boys’ rooms. But in recent years, a strong and distinctive generation of female illustrators has emerged and with deeply personal work seeks to portray modern life as lived by women. Thus Ina Korneliussen’s Små dyr (Little Animals) depicts, in her characteristic, wordless black/white strokes, the joy of motherhood and the fear that

someone or SOMETHING will devour your children, and the dream of riding down a semidetached road on a dinosaur, whilst Rikke Villadsen has picked up her kinky six-shooter and penned the Femiwestern Et knald til (Bang Bang – Thank you M’am), a feminist parody of male stereotypes through the prism of the Wild West with a postmodern twist.

Along with Rikke Bakman, they have helped to set new standards for what’s ‘allowed’ in a comic book and just as importantly what can be achieved.

And Rikke Bakman triumphs with her illustrated memoir Glimt (Glimpse) that seeks to reconstruct lost times as one single day in the life of a six year old girl. Not only was she showered with reviewer hearts and stars, she also won the , Ping Award for Best Danish Comic Book as well as the Ministry of Culture’s 2012 Illustrator Award.

‘With Troldmændene fra Vestmannaeyjar (The Trolls from the Westman Islands), Thomas Engelbrecht Mikkelsel gives his own very individual and assured artistic vision of this Icelandic legend, inspired by US ‘Hellboy’ cartoonist Mike Mignola. Like Mignola, Troldmændene fra Vestmannaeyjar blends myth and realism, but in a terse Nordic tone. It’s a sheer joy to see how Mikkelsen can invoke horrible fell-demons in just a few dramatic strokes.’ Berlingske THOMAS MIKKELSEN TROLDMÆNDENE FRA VESTMANNAEYJAR (THE TROLLS FROM THE WESTMAN ISLANDS)

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COMIC BOOKS

NEW COMIC BOOKS COURSE

2013 saw the launch of Denmark’s first real comic book degree course.

The course is run by the internationally renowned animation college – ‘The Animation Workshop’ in Viborg and is a four year bachelor course with the title ‘Graphic Storytelling’. Comic book illustration has mostly formed a part of various courses at Danish design colleges, but this is the first time a stand alone comic book course is being offered. Chairman of the Danish Comic Book Society Thomas Thorhauge reacted to the advent of the course thus:‘The establishment of such an ambitious comic book course is perhaps the most significant event ever in the history of Danish comics. The structure of the course and its professional craft elements are unique even on an international scale and the Bachelor Degree in Graphic Storytelling will be a huge boost for Danish comic book culture.’ The college will accept 20 new students every second year. The first students started in August 2013 and will graduate in 2017.

‘Along with others like Rikke Villadsen, Ina Korneliussen is one of the young women who has struck a new personal tone in Danish comic book culture.

Further gravitas is given to the wordless comic Small_Animals_Guts.indd book concept with her Små dyr (Little Animals).

These five short stories are well composed, moving and raw.’

Politiken.

INA KORNELIUSSEN. SMÅ DYR (LITTLE ANIMALS)

16THE

MOST RECENT DANISH COMIC BOOKS SOLD ABROAD:

8/13/12 2:37 PM

Rikke Bakman. Glimt (Glimpse). Aben maler 2011, 288 pages. SOLD TO France, Italy, Sweden. John Kenn Mortensen. Post-it-monstre (Post-it Monsters). Aben maler 2011, 80 pages. SOLD TO Italy, United Kingdom. Søren Glosimodt Mosdal. Fimbulvinter (Fimbulwinter). Aben maler 2014, 132 pages. SOLD TO France. Henrik Rehr: Gavrilo Princip (Gavrilo Princip) Farenheit 2014, 236 pages. SOLD TO France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, US. Rune Ryberg: Gigant (Giant). Forlæns 2014, 64 pages.

SOLD TO Norway, Sweden. Mikkel Ørsted Sauzet: Aske (Ashes). Aben maler 2013, 112 pages. SOLD TO Italy. Palle Schmidt. Blodets konkubine (The Devil’s Concubine).

Farenheit 2008, 96 pages. SOLD TO United States.

FOREIGN RIGHTS: Publisher ‘Aben maler’, please contact Steffen Rayburn-Maarup, info@abenmaler.dk. Publisher ‘Fahrenheit’, please contact Paw Mathiasen, fahrenheit@email.dk. Publisher ‘Forlæns’, please contact Torben Hansen, forlaens@ gmail.com. Publisher Høst & Søn, please contact Gyldendal Group Agency (Louise Langhoff Koch), louise_langhoff_koch@gyldendalgroupagency.dk

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SUPERB

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LIFE-WI For thirty years Nikoline Werdelin has sounded the depths of the Danish psyche in her cartoon strips for magazines and newspapers. When the cartoon industry recently issued its Ping Awards, she won both the Honorary Award and the year’s best cartoon series prize for Homo Metropolis 20102012.

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‘I have this marked ability to float out of myself and into other people. To feel and think just like they do. It’s what you might call a very well developed multiple personality disorder.’ – Nikoline Werdelin in her own words, and they highlight a special aspect of her talent: her enormous range of characters. This means we’re all bound to see ourselves somewhere in her work, which balances satire, irony and humour with her rare gift for dialogue.

In her essay-like cartoons for Homo Metropolis (which she started as early 1994) she pens a skewed and fraught portrait of Family Denmark with joint custody and second relationship kids, au pair girls and slightly paedo grandparents.

The main characters touch on matters of sex, identity and loss with a tendency for narcissism and self-destruction. From the

lonely psychologist who has fun planning his suicide in Prague, or the pubertal schoolgirl hoping to save her dysfunctional family by winning a fortune in a crime novel competition, then the stressed middle-aged guy with a pot belly and bald patch who is hassled both at work, with the threat of the sack and thrusting young colleagues breathing down his neck , and at home where his storm-trooper wife insists on rousing him for morning jogs, Ashtanga Yoga and sex on Sundays.

Nikoline Werdelin, born in 1960, won Politiken’s best cartoon series award in 1984 with Café. This strip, in sparse lines and dialogue, gave a portrait of the searching, funny, superficial, lascivious, sweet toothed and all too human big-citycitizen in the cynical eighties. The strip ran daily up to 1988 leaving Homo Metropolis to come the fore

NIKOLINE WERDELIN

& SATIRIST TNESS 18

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with its storyline approach involving different characters; a prequel to the graphic novel. In fact the North American public were treated to a story sequence from Homo Metropolis as part of the From wonderland with love anthology which resulted in Nikoline’s nomination for the renowned Eisner Award cartoon prize. Apart from her strips in Politiken, Nikoline Werdelin has been a regular presence in various magazines and has also illustrated many books, just as many of her daily strips have been published as collections. In 1997, she also debuted as a dramatist with Liebhaverne, which sets up and then demolishes the idea of a perfect life, leaving the audience entertained yet reflective.

“Nikoline Werdelin’s ability to steep herself in the way people think and feel, made her a key literary innovator of the 80s and 90s. Nearly all her characters are striving to fit into a set of very stereotypical life expectations, but in reality they are far more at odds with these bliss-templates than CARSTEN JENSEN, with existence itself.”

Author of Vi, de druknede (We, the Drowned)

PHOTO: XXX

Homo Metropolis 2010-2012 Rosinante 2013, 332 sider. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Jenny Thor, jenny_thor@gyldendalgroupagency.dk

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A W A R D S DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE

PHOTO: ROBIN SKJOLDBORG

PHOTO: ROBIN SKJOLDBORG

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Readers’ Book Prize

The Critics’ Prize

‘You are quite simply a frighteningly good storyteller,’ said Berlingske’s literature editor as he awarded his newspaper’s prize, in conjunction with the Danish Library Association, to Sissel-Jo Gazan for her detective novel Svalens graf (The Swallow’s Graph). The novel is both an edgy tale of family secrets and a scientific cop mystery that probes a seemingly unbelievable truth. It has been widely praised, both for its finely drawn characters, gripping plot and beautifully told family drama. Svalens graf (The Swallow’s Graph) is a standalone continuation of Dinosaurens fjer (The Dinosaur Feather) 2008, which earned SisselJo Gazan Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s Novel Prize, amongst others.

‘Never has our winner contained such bad Danish (and English).

On the other hand, never has any author since P. Sørensen Fugholm achieved such ingenious originality with screamingly funny misspelling and crap punctuation.’ That was just one of the brilliant explanations for awarding Kritikerprisen to Niels Frank for Nellies bog (Nellie’s Book), in which Nellie is both the main character and author. Nellie puts his own bewildered spin on life with uncle Benn and aunty Hellen. Or maybe weird is a better word. But you’re never really sure if Nellie is telling it straight, or if all those films he watches are in there as well, not to mention his highly wrought inner world.

Svalens graf (The Swallow’s Graph) Gyldendal 2013, 480 pp. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Salomonsson Agency, Niclas Salomonsson, info@salomonssonsagency.com PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States.

Nellies bog (Nellie’s Book) Gyldendal 2013, 280 pp. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Jenny Thor, jenny_thor@gyldendalgroupagency.dk

AWARDS

Dig og mig ved daggry (You and Me at Dawn) Gyldendal 2013, 309 pp. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Louise Langhoff Koch, louise_langhoff_koch@gyldendalgroupagency. dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Brazil, Germany, Norway.

The Danish Ministry of Culture’s Illustrator Prize for children’s and youth literature The cartoonist and illustrator Katrine Clante received this year’s award from the Danish Ministry of Culture for her graphic novel series for girls Pssst! (Pssst!), which via twelve year old Viola’s search for her real self, explores the concept of identity from various perspectives.

Inter alia, the jury gave the following reasons for its award: ‘Above all, Pssst! (Pssst!) is the book we didn’t know we were missing until its arrival announced a key work in the ‘tweens’ literary genre, but which also suits readers either side of that age group. It’s a work where text and image not only combine to great effect but also synthesise to create a new entity.’

Pssst! (Pssst) Høst & Søn, 2014. 95 pp. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Gyldendal Group Agency, Louise Langhoff Koch, louise_langhoff_koch@gyldendalgroupagency.dk

PHOTO: MORTEN HOLTUM

Handcuffed together, Louise and Liam jump off a bridge. They are young, and in the kind of love that’s not just a fling. But in the course of a few months, they experience far more than any youth can handle: friends’ suicides, drug debts, threats and betrayal. ‘The milieu is spot on. That’s how it is to be a young, blonde female student.

How it is when you get roped in with a pusher and see the paranoid speed-tab writing on the wall. How it is in a desolate camper van, in an equally desolate apartment block.

You need a special kind of language and dramatic tension to hold the readers to this sort of story, where the end screams at you from page one,’ said the judges who awarded the prize to Glenn Ringtved and Sanne Munk Jensen.

PHOTO: CAÆILLA HEY

PHOTO: ROBIN SKJOLDBORG

The Danish Ministry of Culture’s Author Prize for children’s and youth literature

Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s Best Novel Award Erling Jepsen made his big breakthrough in 2002 with the novel Kunsten at græde i kor (The Art of Crying in Unison), where we met the 11 year old Allan and his highly dysfunctional family. Allan is once again the main character in Den sønderjyske farm (Out of Sønderjylland). He’s now 14 and rearing rabbits in his kitchen garden but life is not one bit better for all that. It was Readers Clubs around the country that gave the nod to Erling Jepsen and Den sønderjyske farm (Out of Sønderjylland) for its remarkable mixture of the cheerful and the bizarre, the gripping and the grotesque, with one judge saying: ‘It gets right under your skin and doesn’t let go. It does something to me when I read it and it affects me greatly.’

Min sønderjyske farm (Out of Sønderjylland) Gyldendal 2013. 272 pp. FOREIGN RIGHTS: Leonhardt & Høier Literary Agency, Anneli Høier, anneli@leonhardt-hoier.dk. PREVIOUS TITLES SOLD TO: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, France, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden.

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2014 – AUGUST 2014

RECENTLY SOLD ABROAD YPSILON EDITION INGER CHRISTENSEN ALFABET

PARK KIADO KRISTIAN BANG FOSS DØDEN KØRER AUDI

YPSILON EDITION INGER CHRISTENSEN SOMMERFUGLEDALEN

TYPOTEX PUBLISHING ANNE LISE MARSTRANDJØRGENSEN HILDEGARD I

DANISH FICTION

FINLAND

CHINA

SAVUKEIDAS MARTIN GLAZ SERUP MARKEN

GERMANY

TAMMI KRISTIAN BANG FOSS DØDEN KØRER AUDI

ATRIUM ANNA GRUE DEN SKALDEDE DETEKTIV

TAMMI PETER HØEG EFFEKTEN AF SUSAN

ATRIUM ANNA GRUE ET SPØRGSMÅL OM PENGE

FRANCE

ATRIUM ANNA GRUE SIDSTE FORESTILLING

ERC MEDIA STEFFEN JACOBSEN TROFÆ

CROATIA ZNANJE JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN ALFABETHUSET ZNANJE JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN JOURNAL 64 ZNANJE THOMAS RYDAHL EREMITTEN

CZECH REPUBLIC ARGO DORTHE NORS KANTSLAG ALBATROS MARTIN JENSEN EN BONDES ORD BRANA JESPER STEIN URO

KARISTO SARA BLÆDEL ALDRIG MERE FRI

ACTES SUD MAREN UTHAUG SÅDAN BLEV DET EDITIONS UNES PIA TAFDRUP TJARKOVSKIJS HESTE FOLIO PUBLISHING ANDERS BODELSEN RØD SEPTEMBER

CARL HANSER PETER HØEG EFFEKTEN AF SUSAN OSBURG VERLAG DORTHE NORS KANTSLAG

GREECE

EDITIONS GAIA ANNA GRUE DEN SKALDEDE DETEKTIV

DEKATA PIA TAFDRUP SELECTED POEMS

PIRANHA JESPER STEIN URO

HUNGARY HOLNAP ADDA DJØRUP DEN MINDSTE MODSTAND

KRISTIAN BANG FOSS

Døden kører Audi (Death drives an Audi)

‘Everybody should read Death drives an Audi. There’s something incredibly brilliant – and highly impressive – about its mixture of gloomy deadpan and madcap metaphors.’ Thus said Information’s book reviewer on Kristian Bang Foss’ latest novel. By way of a ‘comedy of the absurd’ road movie approach, the reader follows the fortunes of the young disabled Waldemar and failed advertising exec. Asger who both feel a great urge to break free from a meaningless existence and decide to head south in a transit van.

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TYPOTEX PUBLISHING ANNE LISE MARSTRANDJØRGENSEN HILDEGARD II

ICELAND FORLAGID KRISTIAN BANG FOSS DØDEN KØRER AUDI FORLAGID HANNE-VIBEKE HOLST DRONNINGEOFRET FORLAGID HANNE-VIBEKE HOLST KONGEMORDET FORLAGID HANNE-VIBEKE HOLST KRONPRINSESSEN

ITALY KOLIBRIS INGER CHRISTENSEN SOMMERFUGLEDALEN KOLIBRIS HENRIK NORDBRANDT GUDS HUS KOLIBRIS SØREN ULRIK THOMSEN RYSTET SPEJL MARSILIO JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN MARCO EFFEKTEN MARSILIO JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN DEN GRÆNSELØSE SCRITTURAPURA HELLE HELLE DETTE BURDE SKRIVES I NUTID

RECENTLY SOLD SØREN ULRIK THOMSEN

LATVIA

Rystet spejl (The Quivering Mirror)

ZVAIGZNE LENE KAABERBØL & AGNETE FRIIS NATTERGALENS DØD

With the publication of Rystet Spejl (The Quivering Mirror) in 2011, Søren Ulrik Thomsen confirmed that where Danish poetry is concerned, he is in a league of his own. His poems provoked some ecstatic reviews. Berlingske for example declared: ‘Søren Ulrik Thomsen has written 42 outstanding poems, full of empathy and pain, but also sensual proximity, a telling atmosphere and a recognition of circumstances and their acceptance. It’s the kind of poetry collection you’re happy to wait a long time for.’

THE NETHERLANDS MEULENHOFF JENS CHRISTIAN GRØNDAHL JERNPORTEN

NORWAY ASCHEHOUG ANNE SOFIE ALLARP SOCIALDEMOKRATER

SERBIA

SWEDEN

TURKEY

GYLDENDAL NORSK FORLAG JOSEFINE KLOUGART OM MØRKE

ALBATROS JAN SONNERGAARD SIDSTE SØNDAG I OKTOBER

10 TAL BOK MARTIN GLAZ SERUP ROMERSKE NÆTTER

DEDALUS KITAP KRISTIAN BANG FOSS DØDEN KØRER AUDI

SPARTACUS MORTEN BRASK EN PIGE OG EN DRENG

ALBATROS HENRIK STANGERUP AT SKRIVE ELLER DØ

ALBERT BONNIERS FÖRLAG JOSEFINE KLOUGART OM MØRKE

DEDALUS KITAP SIMON PASTERNAK DØDSZONER

ROMANIA

SPAIN

EDITURA RAO JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN FLASKEPOST FRA P

EDICIONES B A.J. KAZINSKI EN HELLIG ALLIANCE

ALBERT BONNIERS FÖRLAG LENE KAABERBØL & AGNETE FRIIS NATTERGALENS DØD

EPSILON HASSAN PREISLER BRUN MANDS BYRDE

EDITURA RAO DORTHE NORS KANTSLAG

EDICIONES B A.J. KAZINSKI SØVNEN OG DØDEN

TREI A.J. KAZINSKI EN HELLIG ALLIANCE

GRUPO PLANETA/DESTINO IMPRINT THOMAS RYDAHL EREMITTEN

RUSSIA SYMPOSIUM PETER HØEG DE MÅSKE EGNEDE SYMPOSIUM PETER HØEG FRK. SMILLAS FORNEMMELSE FOR SNE

PASO INGER CHRISTENSEN AZORNO SUMA YAHYA HASSAN YAHYA HASSAN

MODERNISTA ASTA OLIVIA NORDENHOF DET NEMME OG DET ENSOMME NORSTEDTS PETER HØEG EFFEKTEN AF SUSAN RAMÚS JULIE STEEN KNUDSEN ATLANTERHAVET VOKSER

TAIWAN FACES STEFFEN JACOBSEN TROFÆ

KHALEM KAREN BLIXEN EHRENGARD LABIRENT HENRIK BRUN DEN DANSKE LOKKEDUE LABIRENT HENRIK BRUN DEN NORSKE LAKEJ LABIRENT HENRIK BRUN DEN SVENSKE LØGNER MARTI A.J. KAZINSKI DEN SIDSTE GODE MAND

UNITED KINGDOM HESPERUS JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN ALFABETHUSET

HASSAN PREISLER

Brun mands byrde (Brown Man’s Burden)

‘A bloody superb debut novel ‘, wrote Weekendavisen’s book reviewer, who could barely contain his excitement, concluding that ‘Hassan Preisler’s writing is breath-taking and sharp as a knife.’ The novel which is part ‘fuck you sunshine’ self-fictionalising, a raving Bildungsroman, and controversial social satire, tells of an Über-successful Top Dog Paki who gets swallowed up in that peculiar mass of hyper-globalised people who can be found anywhere in the world but who actually never feel at home in any of those places.

PUSHKIN PRESS DORTHE NORS KANTSLAG PUSHKIN PRESS DORTHE NORS MINNA MANGLER ET ØVELOKALE SEREN BOOKS ALEN MESKOVIC UKULENE JAM SKYHORSE PUBLISHING KAARE SØRENSEN HALSHUG

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DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE NILS THORSEN

UNITED STATES

Geniet (The Genius)

BLOODAXE PIA TAFDRUP TRÆKFUGLEN

Film director Lars von Trier is perhaps Denmark’s most famous, not to say infamous artist – famous for his artistic vision, infamous as a professional neurotic.

For the first time ever, von Trier gives a detailed account of his life, his angst, his films and his thoughts to journalist Nils Thorsen. And, in book form at least, we may never get as close again to this ‘martyred’ film genius who tells us that he reckons his moments of happiness last just four seconds a time.

GRAYWOLF PRESS DORTHE NORS DAGE GRAYWOLF PRESS DORTHE NORS KANTSLAG GRAYWOLF PRESS DORTHE NORS MINNA MANGLER ET ØVELOKALE NY BOOKS THORKILD HANSEN DET LYKKELIGE ARABIEN OPEN LETTER NAJA MARIE AIDT STEN SAKS PAPIR OPEN LETTER IBEN MONDRUP EN TO TRE JUSTINE PENGUIN JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN ALFABETHUSET PENGUIN JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN DEN GRÆNSELØSE SEREN BOOKS ALEN MESKOVIC UKULELE JAM SKYHORSE PUBLISHING KAARE SØRENSEN HALSHUG

DANISH NONFICTION

FRANCE EDITIONS FABERT PETER HØEG ET. AL. EMPATI EDITIONS FABERT JESPER JUUL AGRESSION. A NEW AND DANGEROUS TABOO? EDITIONS FABERT JESPER JUUL DO WE REALLY WANT STRONG & HEALTHY CHILDREN

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EDITIONS FABERT JESPER JUUL FAMILIERÅDGIVNING – PERSPEKTIV OG PROCES EDITIONS FABERT JESPER JUUL HER ER JEG! HVEM ER DU? EDITIONS FABERT JESPER JUUL LIVET I FAMILIEN EDITIONS FABERT JESPER JUUL MANN UND VATER SEIN EDITIONS FABERT JESPER JUUL & HELLE JENSEN PÆDAGOGISK RELATIONSKOMPETENCE

SAUDI-ARABIA KING ABDULAZIZ PUBLIC LIBRARY KOLING & BØTTER UNBOSS

SWEDEN MARCUS FÖRLAG KLAUS WIVEL DEN SIDSTE NADVER NORSTEDTS JENS ANDERSEN DENNE DAG, ET LIV. BIOGRAFI OM ASTRID LINDGREN

EDITIONS FABERT JESPER JUUL WHO DO CHILDREN BELONG TO?

STUDENTLITTERATUR MALENE FRIIS ANDERSEN & SVEND BRINKMANN (RED.) NYE PERSPEKTIVER PÅ STRESS

EDITIONS FABERT JESPER JUUL WOMAN & MOTHER

SYNEIDOS CHARLOTTE BECH BLIV NATURLIGT GRAVID

GERMANY BELTZ JESPER JUUL & HELLE JENSEN PÆDAGOGISK RELATIONSKOMPETENCE CHRISTIAN VERLAG JANE FAEBER LCHF CHRISTIAN VERLAG RASMUS GRØNBECH VILDT PÅ GAFLEN THORBECKE METTE MØLBAK MAD TIL 2 DAGE

POLAND WYDAWNICTWO BUKOWY LAS NILS THORSEN GENIET

BOKADEILD KIM FUPZ AAKESON & NIELS BO BOJESEN VITELLO ØNSKER SIG EN HUND

FINLAND STABENFELDT INA BRUHN SOFIE & ALVAR. HESTENE PÅ PONYGÅRDEN STABENFELDT ASTRID HEISE-FJELDGREN JAGTEN PÅ JOE. KYS OG KANEL 4 STABENFELDT METTE FINDERUP EMMY 9. INGEN VEJ TILBAGE STABENFELDT DORTHE ROHOLTE SKØRE HJERTER STABENFELDT CAMILLA WANDAHL HAVETS TÅRE

FRANCE DANISH CHILDREN’S BOOKS

LES ÉDITIONS DU ROUERGUE JESPER WUNG-SUNG KOPIERNE

GERMANY

THE FAROE ISLANDS

BELTZ&GELBERG NICOLE BOYLE RØDTNES ELVERSKUD

BOKADEILD OLE LUND KIRKEGAARD GUMMI-TARZAN

CARL HANSER VERLAG LENE KAABERBØL VILDHEKS 4

BOKADEILD ANITA KRUMBACH ET MÆRKELIGT SKIB

CARL HANSER VERLAG LENE KAABERBØL VILDHEKS 5

BOKADEILD KIM FUPZ AAKESON & NIELS BO BOJESEN VITELLO FÅR EN KLAM KÆRESTE

CARL HANSER VERLAG LENE KAABERBØL VILDHEKS 6

RECENTLY SOLD PETER FRÖDIN & LINE KNUTZON

DTV THOMAS WINDING BEDSTEFARS FORTÆLLINGER OM DYR

Allan – den menneskelige antenne (Allan – the human antenna)

It starts as off as yet another boring summer. Everyone has gone off on their travels and little Allan has been left behind. A neighbour, old Helge, has been asked to look after him. Helge was once the vice chairman of Tårnby UFO society and still wants to contact beings ‘out there’.

And before little Allan knows it, he finds himself rolled up in tinfoil and standing on top of an apartment block in the middle of the night. ‘Scandalously funny, light of touch and decidedly non PC,’ was one reviewer’s judgement of this first in a series about little Allan.

STABENFELDT CAMILLA WANDAHL HAVETS TÅRE

ICELAND BOKADEITAN KENNETH BØGH ANDERSEN DØDENS TERNING

LATVIA ZVAIGZNE FRÖDIN&KNUTZON LILLE ALLAN DEN MENNESKELIGE ANTENNE

THE NETHERLANDS LANNOO LENE KAABERBØL VILDHEKS 1 LANNOO LENE KAABERBØL VILDHEKS 2 PLOEGSMA KENNETH BØGH ANDERSEN ANTBOY I. TISSEMYRENS BID

Lille Allan.indd 38

01/10/12 12.30

STABENFELDT DORTHE ROHOLTE SKØRE HJERTER

BERGHS FÖRLAG DANIEL ZIMAKOFF MEZZI 2

STABENFELDT DORTHE ROHOLTE SKØRE HJERTER

STABENFELDT CAMILLA WANDAHL HAVETS TÅRE

HEGAS BENNI BØDKER ZOMBIE CITY 1

STABENFELDT CAMILLA WANDAHL HAVETS TÅRE

ROMANIA

HEGAS BENNI BØDKER ZOMBIE CITY 2

UNITED STATES

KOINÓNIA KIADÓ FRÖDIN&KNUTZON LILLE ALLAN DEN MENNESKELIGE ANTENNE

SOUTH KOREA

PLOEGSMA KENNETH BØGH ANDERSEN ANTBOY II. OPERATIONS SKÆBNESPIL

HYUN BOOKS IDA JESSEN & HANNE BARTHOLIN DA CARL NÆSTEN SOV I TELT

PLOEGSMA KENNETH BØGH ANDERSEN ANTBOY III. MASKEFALD

SPAIN

WORLD EDITIONS JANNE TELLER HVIS DER VAR KRIG I NORDEN

NORWAY GYLDENDAL AAMAND & KIERTZNER OMAR, BRUNO OG MUSSA GØR ALLE GLADE

PLANETA JANNE TELLER ALT

HEGAS BENNI BØDKER ZOMBIE CITY 3

SIMON & SCHUSTER JANNE TELLER HVIS DER VAR KRIG I NORDEN

HEGAS BENNI BØDKER ZOMBIE CITY 4

SIMON & SCHUSTER JESPER WUNG-SUNG DEN SIDSTE HENRETTELSE

NYPON FÖRLAG LIVA SKOGEMANN BENNI PÅ BÆNKEN

VIVA KENNETH BØGH ANDERSEN ANTBOY I. TISSEMYRENS BID

STABENFELDT INA BRUHN SOFIE & ALVAR. HESTENE PÅ PONYGÅRDEN

IN LATIN

SWEDEN

STABENFELDT ASTRID HEISE-FJELDGREN JAGTEN PÅ JOE. KYS OG KANEL 4

B. WAHLSTRÖMS FÖRLAG OLE LUND KIRKEGAARD OTTO ER ET NÆSEHORN

STABENFELDT METTE FINDERUP EMMY 9. INGEN VEJ TILBAGE

MUNDUSLATINUS JANNE TELLER HVIS DER VAR KRIG I NORDEN

MANGSCHOU IDA-MARIE RENDTORF ATOMZONEN

KIM FUPZ AAKESON & NIELS BO BOJESEN

MANGSCHOU IDA-MARIE RENDTORF RØD JORD

The book series about Vitello, the fatherless boy who lives alone with his mother in the suburbs, and in close proximity to a major ring road, has attained classic status in Danish children’s literature. In each book, a slice of everyday life is transformed into a new and touching experience – here a new family moves into the area, continues that rich vein. To Vitello’s extreme annoyance, this family doesn’t have a single boy, but has a girl called Kamma. And Vitello neither plays with nor kisses girls. Or does he?

STABENFELDT INA BRUHN SOFIE & ALVAR. HESTENE PÅ PONYGÅRDEN STABENFELDT METTE FINDERUP EMMY 9. INGEN VEJ TILBAGE

Vitello får en klam kæreste (Vitello gets a horrible girlfriend)

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SUPPORT SCHEMES THE DANISH ARTS FOUNDATION’S COMMITTEE FOR LITERARY PROJECT FUNDING WORKS TO PROMOTE DANISH LITERATURE AT HOME AND ABROAD AND HELPS FACILITATE LITERARY EXCHANGE PROJECTS BETWEEN DENMARK AND OTHER COUNTRIES.

INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH PROGRAMME Support may be provided to foreign publishers, heads of festivals and the like who want to acquire an insight into contemporary Danish literature and visit Danish publishers, festivals ect., to strengthen networks and dialogue between the Danish and international literary partners.

There is no application deadline, and applications will be processed as quickly as practicable.

SAMPLE TRANSLATION FUND Foreign translators, theatres, and publishers may apply for support to finance sample translations of Danish literature.

There is no application deadline, and applications will be processed as quickly as practicable.

TRANSLATION FUND

APPLICATION GUIDELINES, DEADLINES AND ELECTRONIC APPLICATION FORMS MAY BE OBTAINED AT DANISHARTS.DK

Support is provided to foreign publishing houses that publish works translated from Danish. Support is provided for works of fiction, general works of non-fiction, comics/graphic novels, and children’s literature translated by professional translators.

There are three annual application deadlines.

NORDIC TRANSLATION FUND: INTER-NORDIC TRANSLATIONS

CONTACT:

THE DANISH ARTS FOUNDATION’S COMMITTEE FOR LITERARY PROJECT FUNDING LITT@KULTURSTYRELSEN.DK WWW.DANISHARTS.DK 38

Support may only be sought for the translation of works from Danish. Support for translations into Danish must be sought from within the country in which the respective work was originally published. The funds for Nordic translations are distributed on behalf of Nordic Culture Point’s Culture and Art Programme under the Nordic Council of Ministers.

There are three annual application deadlines.

SAMPLE TRANSLATION FUND INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH PROGRAMME

GENERAL FUND

TRANSLATION FUND

THE DANISH ARTS FOUNDATION SUPPORT SCHEMES

PROMOTION GRANTS

NORDIC TRANSLATION FUND

LITERARY EXCHANGE FUND

LITERARY EXCHANGE FUND

GENERAL FUND

Support may be provided to defray travel and hotel expenses in connection with a Danish author’s participation in literary festivals, readings and publication events abroad, if there is a formal invitation.

Support may be provided to foreign authors travelling to Denmark on the same basis.

In addition, foreign translators of Danish literature may apply for support to defray travel expenses in connection with shorter stays in Denmark.

Professional translators may apply for travel grants in connection with specific translation projects as well as for supplemental linguistic and cultural training.

There is no application deadline, and applications will be processed as quickly as practicable.

Normally, support is only provided for events, publications, and seminars in Denmark. In exceptional cases, however, the Danish Arts Foundation’s Committee for Literary Project Funding may subsidize the publication abroad of Danish works in translation and events, that have a special focus on Danish literature.

In a pilot project, the Danish Arts Foundation’s Committee for Literary Project Funding has earmarked special funds to cover the cost of printing and production for foreign publishers wishing to publish Danish illustrated children’s books in translation. Publishers can apply for a set grant of 1,000 euros.

There are two annual application deadlines.

PROMOTION GRANTS Foreign publishers can apply for grants for the promotion of Danish literature abroad.

There are three annual application deadlines.

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THE DANISH ARTS FOUNDATION WORKS TO PROMOTE ART IN DENMARK AND DANISH ART ABROAD. THE DANISH AGENCY FOR CULTURE IS THE ADMINSTRATIVE ARM OF THE DANISH ARTS FOUNDATION. www.danisharts.dk

ORGANISATIONS DANISH WRITERS OF FICTION AND POETRY

THE DANISH WRITERS ASSOCIATION

was founded in 1991 and has approx. 200 members

is Denmark’s oldest professional association for writers and translators. It was founded in 1894 and has approx.

1350 members. The association includes the Danish Translators Association. df@danskforfatterforening.dk / www.danskforfatterforening.dk

kontor@skoenlit.dk / www.skoenlit.dk

THE DANISH PLAYWRIGHTS’ AND SCREENWRITERS’ GUILD (founded in 1906) is an association for theater, radio, television and film scriptwriters.

It has approx. 300 members. admin@dramatiker.dk / www.dramatiker.dk

THE DANISH BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATION is a trade association for Danish booksellers.

The association has approx. 380 members and represents 90% of all Danish booksellers. ddb@bogpost.dk / www.boghandlerforeningen.dk

THE DANISH PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION (founded in 1837) is a trade association for individuals and firms involved in the publishing industry.

The association accounts for approx. 2/3 of the overall turnover from Danish publications, including multimedia. danskeforlag@danskeforlag.dk / www.danskeforlag.dk

DANISH LITERARY MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY THE DANISH ARTS FOUNDATION’S COMMITTEE FOR LITERARY PROJECT FUNDING. THE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BIANNUALLY. DANI S H AR T S . D K