Meet the Author: The Copenhagen Trilogy

The National Nordic Museum hosts an event to discuss the Copenhagen Trilogy. See event details below:

Join us to discuss The Copenhagen Trilogy by Danish author Tove Ditlevsen. In this talk, translator Michael Favala Goldman as well as Professor Marianne Stecher-Hansen will discuss this courageous and honest trilogy from literary icon Tove Ditlevsen—a pioneer in the field of genre-bending confessional writing—which explores themes of family, sex, motherhood, abortion, addiction, and being an artist. The talk will be moderated by Elizabeth DeNoma.

Tove Ditlevsen is today celebrated as one of the most important and unique voices in twentieth century Danish literature. Born in a working-class neighborhood in Copenhagen in 1917, Ditlevsen became famous for her poetry while still a teenager, and went on to write novels, stories, and memoirs before committing suicide in 1976. Having been dismissed by the critical establishment in her lifetime as a working-class, female writer, she is now being rediscovered and championed as one of Denmark’s most important modern authors, with “Tove fever” gripping readers. The Copenhagen Trilogy (1969–71) is her acknowledged masterpiece.

Ditlevsen’s trilogy is remarkable for its intensity and its immersive depiction of a world of complex female friendships, family, and growing up―in this sense, it is Copenhagen’s answer to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. Her trilogy is drawn from her own experiences but reads like the most compelling kind of fiction, and has been hailed as “admirable and shocking” (Margaret Quamme, Booklist), and “mordant, vibrantly confessional…a masterpiece” (Liz Jensen, The Guardian).

This event is in celebration of its publication in English by translators Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman.

Cost: Free for Members; $5 general admission

3/25 New York Review book review by Deborah Eisenberg
1/26 New York Times book review by Megan O’Grady
1/19 New York Times book review by Parul Sehgal

Please note: a free virtual book club meeting is being held by Northwest Danish on March 24; you may sign up for that book club here.

About the panel:

Michael Goldman taught himself Danish over thirty years ago by translating a Danish copy of Catcher in the Rye to help him win the heart of a lovely Danish girl—and they have been married ever since.

In 2011 Goldman transitioned from a successful career in carpentry and remodeling to translating Danish poetry and prose. Since then, over 110 of his translations have appeared in 35 literary journals including Rattle, Harvard Review, International Poetry Review, and World Literature Today. He has also received numerous translation grants for his work with five distinguished Danish writers.

Goldman is the founder of Hammer and Horn Productions which has produced the audiobook series Poetry for the Rest of Us. These three audiobooks feature work of contemporary Danish poets and have received great reviews.

He is a member of American Literary Translators Association (ALTA), Pioneer Valley Literary Translators (PVLT), and Straw Dogs Writers Guild and lives in Florence, Mass.

Marianne Stecher-Hansen, PhD (UC Berkeley, 1990) is Professor of Danish and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington, where she has taught as a full time faculty member in the Department of Scandinavian Studies since 1991. The daughter of Danish immigrants, Professor Stecher-Hansen has published on numerous topics in Danish literature and Scandinavian culture.  Her edited collection Nordic War Stories—World War II as History, Fiction, Media and Memory is just out this March 2021 (Berghahn Books).  In 2014  she published The Creative Dialectic in Karen Blixen’s Essays (University of Chicago Press)  and recently. the commentary for the definitive edition of Karen Blixen’s Essays (2020), published in Danish.  Her books have been discussed in Denmark’s daily Politiken as well as reviewed in numerous scholarly journals.

Marianne also serves as the Graduate Program Coordinator for UWs graduate program in Scandinavian Studies and teaches a range of undergraduate and graduate courses in Scandinavian Studies and advanced Danish language and literature. She’s long been a fan of Tove Ditlevsen’s memoirs, novels and poetry.