Helle Helle’s "Hafni Says" nominated for the 2024 Nordic Council Literature Prize!

We are so thrilled to share that Helle Helle’s Hafni Says has been nominated for the 2024 Nordic Council Literature Prize! The prestigious prize has been awarded since 1962 and is given to a work of fiction written in one of the Nordic languages. This may be a novel, a play, or a collection of poems, short stories, or essays that are of a high literary and artistic quality. The prize is designed to generate interest in the literature and language of neighbouring countries, and in the Nordic cultural community.

From the jury’s statement:

“Hafni fortæller is a radically experimental and completely unbridled book. It’s a novel about crisis and downfall, about the will to live, alienation, freedom, guilt and shame, and the heavy gaze of expectation. Simply put, it’s a novel about existence.
…
Helle Helle has long proven that her authorship can’t be dismissed in a subordinate clause. Several of her novels already stand as masterpieces in Danish literature. Hafni fortæller is no exception.”

Read the full rationale on the Nordic Council website.

Hafni Says has already been sold to five languages (Czech: Paseka, Dutch: Querido, German: Penguin Verlag, Norwegian: Forlaget Oktober and Swedish: Norstedts).

Congratulations, Helle!