Metres per Second

Stine Pilgaard

Original title: Meter per sekund
Publisher: Gutkind, Danmark, 2020
Genre: Fiction, novel
Pages: 268 pages

A young couple adjusts to their new life together with their infant son at a Folk High School in West Jutland, stepping into a world of tree-hugging faculty, obligatory singalongs and idealist desires to bond with the local community. He’s the new teacher; she’s the plus-one.

In theory, she’d like to be a part of it all but finds herself writing scathing ditties about the place with another plus-one in the community. For all her ambitions to become integrated, she can’t seem to get the knack of it. The codes of rural conversation, its brevity and endless silences stump her.

Metres per Seond is a tale of venturing into a new and uncharted place, of human relationships, dilemmas, and the ways and byways of social cliques.

Foreign rights

German: Kanon Verlag
Dutch: Uitgeverij Oevers
Norwegian: Pelikanen
Swedish: Modernista
World English: World Editions
Finnish: WSOY
French: Le Bruit de monde

Film and TV rights: Nordisk Film

Awards

Weekendavisen’s Literature Prize 2020
The Golden Laurels 2020

A master of irony lays down her weapons … deliciously crumbly novel oozing with awkward love.

Weekendavisen, dk

“The book of the year.” * (5 out of 5 stars)

Jyllandsposten, dk

Sheer delight: Stine Pilgaard has penned a perfect comedy about normalcy.

Informationen, dk

Stine Pilgaard

Stine Pilgaard is a graduate of the Danish Writers’ Academy and the University of Copenhagen. Her first novel, Min mor siger (2012) (My Mother Says), 2012), was a critical and commercial success. It earned her a nomination from the prestigious Danish Broadcasting Corporation Literature Prize and secured the Bodil and Jørgen Munch-Christensen Award for a debuting author. Lejlighedssange (2015) (Songs for Special Occasions), received the Danish Libraries’ Writers Award and a nomination for the Danish Readers’ Book Award. Meter i sekundet (2020) Metres per Second is a tremendous success, more than 100 000 copies sold in Denmark, winner of more prizes, as the prestigious Golden Laurels for best novel of 2020.