Kirsten Thorup

Kirsten Thorup (b. 1942) has established herself over the past forty years as one of the most widely-read and wide-ranging of modern Danish authors. She has written poetry, plays and novels, often focusing on the fates of outsiders, those who are marginalized because of social, class or ethnic disparities. Much of her material is rooted in her own experiences. The central character of her four novels about Jonna, Little Jonna (1977), The Long Summer (1979), Heaven and Hell (1982) and The Outer Limit (1987), comes as she does from the island of Funen and struggles to adapt to big-city life. In Bonsai (2000) she draws on her own unhappiness in the story of a wife watching her husband dying of Aids, and in No Man’s Land (2003) she depicts the dilemmas faced by a family coping with a fiercely independent but failing elderly parent. The God of Chance (2011) is a story about the bad conscience of Europeans in the face of global inequality, and the problematic results of our well-meaning efforts to make a difference. Trying to play God can lead to unforseen tragedy for donor and recipient alike.

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