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 M ller. 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.
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 Müller 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 *