Where Literature Begins
In a new series of film portraits you will get a closer look at 12 of Danish literature's great voices.
The 12 films are produced by the literary festival Louisiana Literature and will be published gradually through November and December at Louisiana Channel and here on this page. You can currently watch 8 portraits with Suzanne Brøgger, Peter Høeg and Helle Helle among others.
Suzanne Brøgger
“When you wake up each morning, you must sharpen your knives. It’s a tough world,” says Brøgger, who in this portrait talks about writing fearlessly from her own life.
Peter Laugesen
Step into a truly unique setting – the Wadden Sea – as seen through the eyes of poet, Peter Laugesen, who introduces us to the landscape and to his poetic approach, where “it’s a state of mind you enter.
Peter Høeg
“We live in an extremely outgoing and extrovert culture. It constantly presents us with experts and quick fixes. We are constantly pulled out of ourselves. And my feeling or certainty still is that it’s best if you offset that by looking inward," says the writer. In this conversation he reflects about his life-long fascination for literature and books.
Helle Helle
“Can I use grammar to show the pain and the sorrow? Can I create a narrative position, which means that as you read, you can feel the pain without me making it explicit?” Meet Helle Helle in her work study in Sorø, Denmark, when she describes the mind-boggling process of writing a novel.
Kim Leine
“I think many authors see it as a challenge to write as the other sex,” says the Norwegian writer Kim Leine. Learn more on his writing, which a great deal evolves from the experiences he had living 15 years in Greenland.
Hanne Højgaard Viemose
Watch a portrait of an incomparable voice in Danish literature, who writes with liberating linguistic ferocity and devil-may-care nature. The portrait is filmed with mobile cameras, while on a trip with family and a friend.
Henrik Nordbrandt
“I am what is around me.” Henrik Nordbrandt is widely regarded as one of the most important and celebrated poets in Scandinavia. In this video portrait filmed in his house on Møn, Denmark, he speaks about childhood, ghosts and his life with poetry, shaped by the many years he lived in Mediterranean countries.
Ursula Andkjær Olsen
“It's the idea that you have a seed - out of which the rest grows," says poet Ursula Andkjær Olsen. Considered one of the most important poets of her generation, her background with classical music has inspired her writing.
Dorrit Willumsen
"The characters I write about are not absolutely normal. But I don’t think I’ve ever met a completely normal person,” says Dorrit Willumsen. Meet the author, who made her literary debut in 1965 with the short story collection ‘Knagen’.
Harald Voetmann
“There’s a lot of talk about finding your own voice. As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s overrated," says Harald Voetmann. He believes that the most interesting point is what happens in the meeting with the voices of others. Join him on a trip to the Danish island Hven – the island which he has dedicated one of his historical novels 'Everything Under the Moon' about Tycho Brahe to.
Peter Adolphsen
“Everything that my art contains is preexisting art. I cut it up and cook it in a pot and run it through my system and then I serve it nicely on a plate.” Meet an incomparable writer of entertaining short prose Peter Adolphsen.
Niviaq Korneliussen
At the age of 24, Niviaq Korneliussen published her groundbreaking debut, describing the rebellion of young queer people in Greenland, “all being ticking time bombs, with so much in them.”
