The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen
The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
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The Copenhagen Trilogy
Childhood; Youth; Dependency

Author: Tove Ditlevsen, Tiina Nunnally, Michael Favala Goldman

Narrator: Stine Wintlev

Unabridged: 11 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/26/2021


Synopsis

Called "a masterpiece" by The Guardian, this courageous and honest trilogy from Tove Ditlevsen, a pioneer in the field of genre-bending confessional writing, explores themes of family, sex, motherhood, abortion, addiction, and being an artist. This program contains all three volumes of her memoirs

Tove Ditlevsen is today celebrated as one of the most important and unique voices in twentieth-century Danish literature, and The Copenhagen Trilogy (1969–71) is her acknowledged masterpiece. Childhood tells the story of a misfit child’s single-minded determination to become a poet; Youth describes her early experiences of sex, work, and independence. Dependency picks up the story as the narrator embarks on the first of her four marriages and goes on to describe her horrible descent into drug addiction, enabled by her sinister, gaslighting doctor-husband.

Throughout, the narrator grapples with the tension between her vocation as a writer and her competing roles as daughter, wife, mother, and drug addict, and she writes about female experience and identity in a way that feels very fresh and pertinent to today’s discussions around feminism. 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’s Copenhagen's answer to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels. She can also be seen as a spiritual forerunner of confessional writers like Karl Ove Knausgaard, Annie Ernaux, Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy. Her trilogy is drawn from her own experiences but unfolds like the most compelling kind of fiction.

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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About Tove Ditlevsen

Tove Ditlevsen was born in 1917 in a working-class neighborhood 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 three volumes of the Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood (1967), Youth (1967), and Dependency (1971). She died in 1976.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lotte on May 02, 2021

Childhood: 4.5/5 Youth: 3.5/5 Dependency: 4/5 A truly excellent trilogy about growing up in a working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen, about the search for freedom and artistic fulfillment as a woman in the early 20th century, about love and addiction and finding solace in books and writing. I’m so g......more

Goodreads review by Patricija || book.duo on March 18, 2023

5/5 Nuostabi, kvapą gniaužianti, išvien cituotina. Lygina ją su Knausgardu ir jei šis man rodėsi, nu, nevyniosiu, zyzla ir užknisančiai diediškas, tai Dietlevsen pakerėjo ir jis rūko kampe. Jos pastabumas, atida detalėms, smulkmeniškumas, humoro jausmas, gebėjimas patraukti iš pirmo žvilgsnio paprast......more

Goodreads review by spillingthematcha on January 13, 2022

Czytanie tej książki było ciekawym doświadczeniem. Trudnym i złożonym, ale ciekawym.......more

Goodreads review by JimZ on October 15, 2021

This volume contains 3 memoirs: • Childhood, published in 1967….1985 English translation • Youth, published in 1967….1985 English translation • Dependency, published in 1971….2019 English translation I gave the first two 4.5 stars and the third and last one 4 stars. The first two were “enjoyable” to rea......more

Goodreads review by Ugnė on November 13, 2022

Perskaičius šią knygą sugrįžo skaitymo manija. Bet ne ta kiekybinė, kuriai svarbiausia kuo daugiau, bet ta išrankioji - noriu skaityti tik tai, kas yra geriausia. Nusibodo kišti į save sprangią avižinę košę, geidžiu tą žiupsnį laiko, kai nemiegu, nedirbu ir neplaunu indų, praleisti ragaujant delikat......more


Awards

  • New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year
  • NPR Best Book of the Year
  • New York Magazine Best Books of the Year
  • Financial Times Books of the Year
  • Time Magazine Best Books of the Year
  • The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year