'So clear is Ditlevsen's eye that it is impossible to tear yourself away' John Self GuardianAn
unforgettable collection of stories from the author of The Copenhagen Trilogy 'The most
important thing is probably always precisely the thing you can't have. That's where all the
happiness is' In these brief acid-sharp stories of love marriage and family from one of
Denmark's most celebrated writers the ordinary events of everyday life - a wife anxious not to
wake her husband a little boy losing his father's beloved knife a woman's obsessive longing
for a yellow silk umbrella - become dark and disconcerting. Here Tove Ditlevsen explores
yearning fear and the elusiveness of that strange thing called happiness. 'The purity and
dazzling insight of Ditlevsen's writing speaks for itself' Daily Telegraph 'Authentic unforced
and utterly lucid' Sunday Times 'Ditlevsen's wonderful and devastatingly bleak short stories
simmer with melancholy and despair' Daily Mail Translated by Michael Favala Goldman
