The classic Danish trilogy hailed as a masterpiece on publication in English last year - now in a single volume in Penguin Modern Classics
Growing up in a working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen, Tove feels that her childhood is made for a completely different girl. As 'long, mysterious words begin to crawl across my soul', she comes to understand that she has a vocation that will define her life. Her path seems assured, but she has no idea of the struggles ahead - love affairs, wanted and unwanted pregnancies, artistic failure and destructive addiction. As the years go by, the central tension of Tove's life comes into painful focus- the terrible lure of dependency, in all its forms, and the possibility of living freely and fearlessly - as an artist on her own terms.
The classic Danish trilogy hailed as a masterpiece on publication in English last year - now in a single volume in Penguin Modern Classics
Growing up in a working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen, Tove feels that her childhood is made for a completely different girl. As 'long, mysterious words begin to crawl across my soul', she comes to understand that she has a vocation that will define her life. Her path seems assured, but she has no idea of the struggles ahead - love affairs, wanted and unwanted pregnancies, artistic failure and destructive addiction. As the years go by, the central tension of Tove's life comes into painful focus- the terrible lure of dependency, in all its forms, and the possibility of living freely and fearlessly - as an artist on her own terms.
The classic Danish trilogy hailed as a masterpiece on publication in English last year - now in a single volume in Penguin Modern Classics
Tove Ditlevsen (Author)
Tove Ditlevsen was born in 1917 in a working-class neighbourhood in
Copenhagen. Her first volume of poetry was published when she was
in her early twenties, and was followed by many more books,
including the novels The Faces and Vilhelm's Room and her
autobiographical masterpiece, Childhood (1967), Youth (1967) and
Dependency (1971). She married four times and died by suicide in
1976.
Tiina Nunnally (Translator)
Tiina Nunnally is an award-winning translator (from Danish,
Norwegian and Swedish) and novelist. She was awarded the
prestigious PEN Translation Prize in 2001 for her translation of
the third volume of Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter, and her
translations of Hans Christian Andersen and Tove Ditlevsen for
Penguin Classics have been widely praised.
To get it out of the way: these are the best books I have read this
year ... Childhood has the simple declarative sentences of Natalia
Ginzburg and the pervasive horror of a good fairy story
*New Statesman*
Mordant, vibrantly confessional... A masterpiece
*Guardian*
Semi-miraculous, raw and poignant ... Radiates the clear light of
truth and stands as the ultimate victory of a life that must have
felt, in the living of it, like a defeat
*Observer*
Intense, elegant ... Ditlevsen's portrait of Vesterbro in the
Twenties has something of the same texture of Elena Ferrante's
description of the poor Neapolitan neighbourhood in which her
heroines grow up
*The Daily Telegraph*
Wrenching sadness and pitch-black comedy ... Sharp, tough and
tender
*Spectator*
A particular kind of masterpiece, one that helps fill a particular
kind of void. Ditlevsen's voice, diffident and funny, dead-on about
her own mistakes, is a welcome addition to that canon of women who
showed us their secret faces so that we might wear our own.
*New York Times*
Intense and elegant ... an absolute tour de force
*Paris Review*
A stunning portrait of addiction and ambition . . . unnervingly
brilliant. I felt an almost physical pull to reimmerse myself in
the freezing cold water of the trilogy, which understands the
trauma of childhood and its reverberations like nothing else I have
ever read
*Vox*
Ditlevsen's taut, simple prose shines a light on what life and love
were like for working-class women in 20th century Copenhagen. Elena
Ferrante fans, take note
*Stylist*
Despite the darkness that haunts these three books, they shine with
Ditlevsen's honesty and humanity ... Her work, seemingly so simple,
has the miraculous quality of a life perceived in perfect clarity.
Despite the author's untimely death, The Copenhagen Trilogy is a
powerful - and uplifting - testament of survival
*Erica Wagner*
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