Copenhagen Trilogy Series by Tove Ditlevsen
Copenhagen Trilogy #1
Childhood
Tove Ditlevsen
The first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, the searing portrait of a woman's journey through love, friendship, ambition and addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated twentieth-century writersTove knows she is a misfit, whose childhood is made for a completely different girl. In her working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen, she is enthralled by her wild, red-headed friend Ruth, who initiates her into adult secrets. But Tove cannot reveal her true self to her or to anyone else. For 'long, mysterious words begin to crawl across my soul', and she comes to realize that she has a vocation, something unknowable within her - and that she must one day, painfully but inevitably, leave the narrow street of her childhood behind.Childhood, the first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, is a visceral portrait of girlhood and female friendship, told with lyricism and vivid intensity.
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Copenhagen Trilogy #2
Youth
Tove Ditlevsen
'Utterly, agonisingly compulsive ... a masterpiece' Liz Jensen, GuardianThe second volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, the searing portrait of a woman's journey through love, friendship, ambition and addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated twentieth-century writersForced to leave school early, Tove embarks on a chequered career in a string of low-paid, menial jobs. But she is hungry: for poetry, for love, for real life to begin. As Europe slides into war, she must navigate exploitative bosses, a Nazi landlady and unwelcome sexual encounters on the road to hard-won independence. Yet she remains ruthlessly determined in the pursuit of her poetic vocation - until at last the miracle she has always dreamed of appears to be within reach. Youth, the second volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, is a strikingly honest and immersive portrait of adolescence, filled with biting humour, vulnerability and poeticism.
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Copenhagen Trilogy #3
Dependency
Tove Ditlevsen
'Utterly, agonisingly compulsive ... a masterpiece' Liz Jensen, GuardianThe final volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, the searing portrait of a woman's journey through love, friendship, ambition and addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated twentieth-century writersTove is only twenty, but she's already famous, a published poet and wife of a much older literary editor. Her path in life seems set, yet she has no idea of the struggles ahead - love affairs, wanted and unwanted pregnancies, artistic failure and destructive addiction. As the years go by, the central tension of Tove's life comes into painful focus: the terrible lure of dependency, in all its forms, and the possibility of living freely and fearlessly - as an artist on her own terms. The final volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, and arguably Ditlevsen's masterpiece, Dependency is a dark and blisteringly honest account of addiction,...
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