About this Event
About the book:
Fine Gråbøl’s narrator dreams of furniture flickering to life. A chair that greets you, shiny tiles that follow a peculiar grammar, or a bookshelf that can be thrown on like an apron. Fine’s narrator is obsessed with the way items rise up out of their thingness, assuming personalities and private motives. She lives in a temporary psychiatric care unit for young people in Copenhagen, practicing daily routines that take on the urgency of survival (peeling a carrot, drinking prune juice, listening through thin walls). Gråbøl’s prose demands that you slow down, follow just a footstep behind as she charts a wisdom of her own.
Praise:
Before the relative independence of the residential facility, our narrator was locked in the psychiatric ward of a hospital and subjected to repeated electroconvulsive therapy . . . Gråbøl’s eye is unsparing and convincing, her prose vivid and alive . . . The narrator doesn’t deny that she needs help . . . But at the same time, she has questions: 'Why doesn’t anyone wonder about the line between trauma and treatment?... about the relationship between compulsion and compliance?... care and abuse?... between surrender and obliteration?
— Kirkus Reviews, starred review
An incredibly moving and gripping novel... so sure-footed, clear, vibrating, like chiffon or a cigarette.
— Olga Ravn, author of The Employees and My Work
In Fine Gråbøl’s vital contemporary novel, the mind is kept just above water . . . Fine Gråbøl’s portrayal of this inner tension is incredibly nuanced and highly sensitive . . . The novel is both poetic and matter of fact. Heartbreaking and critical. Complex, in other words – just as life is.— Jury, Winner of Bogforum's Best Debut Prize
About the author:
What Kingdom is Fine Gråbøl's debut novel. Gråbøl has previously published a collection of poetry, Knoglemarv lavendel (Bone-marrow Lavender, 2018), together with the poetry collective BMS – consisting of Dorte Limkilde, Mette Kierstein, Ronja Johansen, and Gråbøl. And in late April, Gads forlag publishes Gråbøl's second novel, Hundrede børn. What Kingdom wonDenmark’s most prestigious award for debut fiction, Bogforum’s Debutantpris.
About the translator:
Martin Aitken is the acclaimed translator of numerous novels from Danish and Norwegian, including works by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Peter Høeg, Jussi Adler-Olsen, and Pia Juul, and his translations of short stories and poetry have appeared in many literary journals and magazines. In 2012, he was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation's Nadia Christensen Translation Prize. In 2019. he was awarded the PEN Translation Prize for his translation of Love by Hanne Ørstavik.
Buy your copy of the book here to pick it up at the event!
Accessibility note: This event is up two flights of stairs and Lost City Books does not have an elevator. Please contact [email protected] with accessibility questions.
This is a free event. RSVPs are appreciated as they help us anticipate the number of guests. Come early to get a seat!
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Lost City Books, 2467 18th Street Northwest, Washington, United States
USD 0.00
