Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

Childhood, Youth, Dependency

byTove Ditlevsen, Tiina Nunnally (Translator), Michael Favala Goldman (Translator)

The Copenhagen Trilogy

Format:

PaperbackEbookAudio Download

Buy the book from:

AmazonOpens in a new tabBlackwellsOpens in a new tabBookshop.orgOpens in a new tabFoylesOpens in a new tabHiveOpens in a new tabWaterstonesOpens in a new tabWHSmithOpens in a new tab
Growing up in a working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen, Tove feels that her childhood is made for a completely different girl. As 'long, mysterious words begin to crawl across my soul', she comes to understand that she has a vocation that will define her life. Her path seems assured, but she has no idea of the struggles ahead - love affairs, wanted and unwanted pregnancies, artistic failure and destructive addiction. As the years go by, the central tension of Tove's life comes into painful focus: the terrible lure of dependency, in all its forms, and the possibility of living freely and fearlessly - as an artist on her own terms.

About the series

Choose 3 timeless classics for only £21 over on the Penguin Shop

To get it out of the way: these are the best books I have read this year ... Childhood has the simple declarative sentences of Natalia Ginzburg and the pervasive horror of a good fairy story

John Self, New Statesman

About Tove Ditlevsen

Tove Ditlevsen was born in 1917 in a working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen. Her first volume of poetry was published when she was in her early twenties, and was followed by many more books, including the novels The Faces and Vilhelm's Room and her autobiographical masterpiece, Childhood (1967), Youth (1967) and Dependency (1971). She married four times and died by suicide in 1976.
Details
All editions