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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 her three brilliant volumes of memoir, Childhood (1967), Youth (1967) and Dependency (1971). She married four times and struggled with alcohol and drug abuse throughout her adult life until her death by suicide in 1978. Tiina Nunnally is an award-winning translator and author. She translates works from Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. She was awarded the prostigeous PEN Translation Prize in 2001.
About the author
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 her three brilliant volumes of memoir,
Childhood (1967),
Youth (1967) and
Dependency (1971). She married four times and struggled with alcohol and drug abuse throughout her adult life until her death by suicide in 1978.
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.
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The fact that Ditlevsen was herself one of insanity's intimates does much to explain this book's harrowing authenticity. But The Faces - in Tiina Nunnally's very deliberate, close-to-the-nerve translation - rises above a case study because, working from the inside, Ditlevsen is able to explore the surprising contours of Lise's experience: from her point of view, madness can be funny, soft and secure, and far more enlightening than the "reality" it struggles to evade The New York Times
