Fragments of a Mirror
Selected Essays
Knud Sønderby
Translated from the Danish by Michael Goldman
ISBN 978-1-944682-36-1 (pbk.) $15.00 150 pages
ISBN 978-1-944682-77-4 (hdc.) $25.00
pbk.
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There’s something very endearing about these essays by the late, great Knud Sønderby, which have been translated into English for the first time by Michael Goldman. Among the highlights in this fine collection are bittersweet reflections about owning a boat, musings about darkness and the sound of the wind in West Jylland, and observations about the people Sønderby encounters on his travels across the picturesque Danish landscape. Full of deft humor and thoughtful introspection, Fragments of a Mirror offers up glittering shards of Knud Sønderby at his finest.
Nicholas Litchfield, author of Swampjack Virus, editor of Lowestoft Chronicle
Knud Sønderby is a master of language, a poetic realist and a refined memoirist. His essays express a very Danish relationship to reality, characterized by his humorous, evocative tone and his delightful observations of this unique Scandinavian country.
Peter Gadman, author of Knud Sønderbys Forfatterskab
Knud Sønderby (1909-1966) was an eminent Danish novelist, journalist, translator, and essayist. The initial printing of his first novel, Midt i en Jazztid (In the Middle of a Jazz Age) sold out in fourteen days due to its immediate popularity among the youth of Denmark. Today this novel is his best-known work and an integral piece of the Danish literary canon. For two decades Sønderby wrote as a journalist for three major newspapers while publishing four additional novels and six plays, as well as translating numerous works into Danish for the Royal Theater. The essays in this volume are drawn from his six essay collections. Sønderby was also a founding member of the Danish Academy.
Founder of Hammer and Horn Productions, Michael Goldman promotes and produces translated works of Danish literature. Over one hundred of Goldman’s translations of poetry and prose have appeared in literary journals such as Rattle, Harvard Review, World Literature Today, and International Poetry Review. The Midwest Book Review calls his series of poetry audiobooks “superb choices for connoisseurs of multicultural poetry, worthy of the highest recommendation.” His translated book publications include Farming Dreams by Knud Sørensen, Average Neuroses by Marianne Koluda Hansen, and Stories about Tacit by Cecil Bødker. He lives in Florence, Massachusetts, USA. hammerandhorn.net