The Trouble With Happiness

Ditlevsen, Tove Irma Margi

£10.99

A newly married woman longs, irrationally, for a silk umbrella; a husband chases away his wife’s beloved cat; a betrayed mother impulsively sacks her housekeeper. Underneath the surface of these precisely observed tales of love, marriage and family life in mid-century Copenhagen pulse currents of desire, violence and despair, as women and men dream of escaping their conventional roles and finding freedom and happiness – without ever truly understanding what that might mean.

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Publish Date: 03/03/2022

Description

A shimmering collection of stories from the author of The Copenhagen Trilogy, translated into English for the first time

From one of Denmark’s most celebrated writers and the author of Childhood, Youth and Dependency, these short stories are brief, devastating, acid-sharp portrayals of love, marriage and family in mid-century Copenhagen. Here the ordinary events of everyday life – a wife anxious not to wake her husband, a little boy losing his father’s beloved knife, a married woman’s obsessive longing for a yellow silk umbrella, a girl dreaming of a masquerade ball – become dark and disconcerting, as we see what lies beneath. Translated into English for the first time, these are stories that explore yearning, fear, despair and the elusiveness of that strange thing called happiness.

Translated by Michael Favala Goldman

Additional information

Weight 196 g
Dimensions 216 × 135 × 14 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

160

Language

English

Edition

|C format

Dewey

839.81372 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K