Natalja's Stories

From one of Denmark’s most revered authors, a startlingly original novel about a migrant’s fate, told across several generations This is the story of a young woman who is spirited away to St. Petersburg from Copenhagen by a lovestruck admirer. When she dies after the Revolution, her ashes are carried back to Denmark, igniting a chain reaction of further stories, told and retold by the women in her family against a shifting ground of meaning. We meet murderers and fable-like characters, such as the hilarious and unsettling Viktor Blanke, who manages to seduce not one but three generations of mothers and daughters. Natalja, we discover, cannot be held in one place. Rather than giving in to the tragedy that befalls her, she wills herself to become someone else, reinventing her family’s narrative one irresistible tale at a time. Tantalizing and full of wit, this remarkable, shape-shifting novel is available in English for the first time. Translated by Denise Newman

Known primarily for her poetry, Inger Christensen (1935-2009) remains one of Denmark’s most distinguished and original authors. Natalja’s Stories, modeled after Boccaccio’s Decameron, takes an usual approach to the theme of migration by focusing on the shifting ground of meaning itself. It is a tale told to the narrator by her grandmother—about her mother, "abducted" by a Russian from Copenhagen: taken to Russia, she tries to flee the Revolution; she dies and her ashes are carried back to Denmark. But the story is told and retold in marvelous ways, digressing playfully (often hilariously), and involving murders and absurd characters, with wonderful repeating motifs and passages. Natalja’s Stories springs surprise after surprise, and as one Danish critic put it: “instead of a conventional heartbreaking story of loss and disaster, the book appears as a tantalizing account of a character seizing the moment, leaving the past behind, and becoming someone else—offering, in fact, a deconstruction of the usual take on migrant fate as a tragic narrative.”

Known primarily for her poetry, Inger Christensen (1935-2009) remains one of Denmark’s most distinguished and original authors. Natalja’s Stories, modeled after Boccaccio’s Decameron, takes an usual approach to the theme of migration by focusing on the shifting ground of meaning itself. It is a tale told to the narrator by her grandmother—about her mother, "abducted" by a Russian from Copenhagen: taken to Russia, she tries to flee the Revolution; she dies and her ashes are carried back to Denmark. But the story is told and retold in marvelous ways, digressing playfully (often hilariously), and involving murders and absurd characters, with wonderful repeating motifs and passages. Natalja’s Stories springs surprise after surprise, and as one Danish critic put it: “instead of a conventional heartbreaking story of loss and disaster, the book appears as a tantalizing account of a character seizing the moment, leaving the past behind, and becoming someone else—offering, in fact, a deconstruction of the usual take on migrant fate as a tragic narrative.”

From one of Denmark’s most revered authors, a startlingly original novel about a migrant’s fate, told across several generations This is the story of a young woman who is spirited away to St. Petersburg from Copenhagen by a lovestruck admirer. When she dies after the Revolution, her ashes are carried back to Denmark, igniting a chain reaction of further stories, told and retold by the women in her family against a shifting ground of meaning. We meet murderers and fable-like characters, such as the hilarious and unsettling Viktor Blanke, who manages to seduce not one but three generations of mothers and daughters. Natalja, we discover, cannot be held in one place. Rather than giving in to the tragedy that befalls her, she wills herself to become someone else, reinventing her family’s narrative one irresistible tale at a time. Tantalizing and full of wit, this remarkable, shape-shifting novel is available in English for the first time. Translated by Denise Newman