Hafni Says

Helle Helle

Original title: Hafni fortæller
Publisher: Gutkind, 2023
Pages: 153 pages

Hafni says … she’s getting divorced. She’s phoning the novel’s narrator from a lay-by. But it’s Hafni doing the talking.
She’s celebrating the divorce with a smørrebrød tour as she calls it – from Roskilde by way of Ringsted, Korsør, Nyborg, Svendborg, Faaborg and the Bøjden-Fynshav ferry to Gråsten, there to sample the South Jutland region’s renowned afternoon tea.
A tour that was meant to take a week. But ends up taking nearly a month.

Now Hafni’s phoning to talk about what went wrong along the way. She says:

I don’t want to be me.
I want to remake myself.
I don’t know how to remake myself.

Hafni Says will be published by Gutkind in Denmark
1 September 2023

Foreign rights

Dutch: Querido
Norwegian: Forlaget Oktober

This is a wonderful novel! Warm, funny and tender, a fabulous portrait executed with astonishing narrative design. Hafni! I’ll never forget her. The way Helle allows Hafnii to convey her own story, with no interruptions and without impatience, is deeply moving and original. No one portrays people in all their frailty like Helle, of that I’m certain.

Signe Russwurm, editor at Forlaget Oktober, Norway

Helle Helle

Photo by Mikkel Carl

Helle Helle is a graduate of the Danish Academy of Creative Writing and the author of a number of novels, as well as two collections of short fiction. She is one of scandinavia’s most original writers, with a career spanning almost three decades, from her debut Example of Life (1993) to her most recent novel, BOB (2020).
Helle Helle’s breakthrough novel,Rødby-Puttgarden, was awarded the Danish Critics’ Prize for Literature, since when she has received her native country’s highest literary accolades, including the Per Olov Enquist Prize, the Golden Laurels of the Danish Booksellers’ Association, the Grand Prize of the Danish Academy, and the Holberg Medal. Her books have been translated into 22 languages.