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.
Sophia Hersi Smith is a translator living in Copenhagen. Together with Jennifer Russell, she has translated fiction and poetry by Danish writers such as Olga Ravn, Tove Ditlevsen and Solvej Balle.
Jennifer Russell is a translator living in Copenhagen. Together with Sophia Hersi Smith, she has translated fiction and poetry by Danish writers such as Olga Ravn, Tove Ditlevsen and Solvej Balle.
Olga Ravn is one of Denmark's most celebrated contemporary authors. Her novel
The Employees was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021, the Ursula K.Le Guin Prize and longlisted for the National Book Awards and the Dublin Literary Award. Her novel
My Work won the Politikens Literature Prize in 2021 and led to changes in the country's maternity rights. She has also written shorter pieces for the
New Yorker, the
Paris Review and
Granta.