Natalja's Stories
Published on 4. December 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
96 pages
978-0-241-79046-5 (ISBN)
Description
From one of Denmark's most revered authors, a startlingly original novel about a migrant's fate, told across several generations
This is the story of a young woman who is spirited away to St. Petersburg from Copenhagen by a lovestruck admirer. When she dies after the Revolution, her ashes are carried back to Denmark, igniting a chain reaction of further stories, told and retold by the women in her family against a shifting ground of meaning. We meet murderers and fable-like characters, such as the hilarious and unsettling Viktor Blanke, who manages to seduce not one but three generations of mothers and daughters. Natalja, we discover, cannot be held in one place. Rather than giving in to the tragedy that befalls her, she wills herself to become someone else, reinventing her family's narrative one irresistible tale at a time.
Tantalizing and full of wit, this remarkable, shape-shifting novel is available in English for the first time.
Translated by Denise Newman
This is the story of a young woman who is spirited away to St. Petersburg from Copenhagen by a lovestruck admirer. When she dies after the Revolution, her ashes are carried back to Denmark, igniting a chain reaction of further stories, told and retold by the women in her family against a shifting ground of meaning. We meet murderers and fable-like characters, such as the hilarious and unsettling Viktor Blanke, who manages to seduce not one but three generations of mothers and daughters. Natalja, we discover, cannot be held in one place. Rather than giving in to the tragedy that befalls her, she wills herself to become someone else, reinventing her family's narrative one irresistible tale at a time.
Tantalizing and full of wit, this remarkable, shape-shifting novel is available in English for the first time.
Translated by Denise Newman
Reviews / Votes
She whispers to me in my own writing, a brilliant, fierce literary mother whom I will read and re-read again and again -- Siri Hustvedt A magnificent writer. I always hoped she would be given the Nobel Prize. When she died, I said: 'Now they've let Inger die.' I wouldn't have minded waiting. I could have received it later, or perhaps not at all -- Herta Mueller Her luminous prose confirms what was already evident in the poems: that Christensen was one of the eminent visionaries of the twentieth century * Los Angeles Review of Books * Christensen's probing, questioning, hopeful voice was an important one and is missed * Kirkus Reviews * Instead of a conventional story of suffering, loss and disaster, the book is a tantalizing, playful account of a character seizing the moment, leaving the past behind, and becoming someone else - a deconstruction of the usual take on the migrant's fate as a tragic narrative * Information *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 174 mm
Width: 112 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
76 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-79046-5 (9780241790465)
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Persons
Inger Christensen (1935-2009) was one of Scandinavia's most powerful literary voices. Her ingeniously crafted poetry and prose have been variously called naturalist, experimental, formalist, and structuralist; essentially, her work defies labels. Each of her books resembles nothing else, yet each is imbued with her characteristic visionary clarity and human sensibility. Christensen won numerous major European literary awards, including the Grand Prix des Biennales Internationales de Poesie, the Nordic Prize of the Swedish Academy, and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. During her final decade, she was consistently mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, including by Herta Mueller.
Denise Newman is a poet and translator. She is the author of three collections of poems, The New Make Believe, Wild Goods, and Human Forest. Her poems, collaborations, and translations have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Volt, Fence, New American Writing, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere.
Denise Newman is a poet and translator. She is the author of three collections of poems, The New Make Believe, Wild Goods, and Human Forest. Her poems, collaborations, and translations have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Volt, Fence, New American Writing, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere.