Niels Lyhne

Before you is an unquestionable classic of Danish literature—a psychological drama in the best traditions of realism, a novel about a person’s confrontation with blind fate: “Niels Lyhne.” Its author, Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847–1885), died of tuberculosis relatively early, leaving behind only two novels, seven short stories, and a small collection of poetry published posthumously. Yet this small literary legacy completely changed the course of Danish literature’s development. Jacobsen managed to combine a heavy, dark drama with the enduring beauty of the world, and his novel is the story of a boy who grows up to become a poet and, with a special, sharp rhythm of perception, senses the world around him—every loss and every fortune—painfully parting with the image of God as his soul tears and darkens after each new tragedy that befalls him. It’s an unbearably vivid, resonant text whose charm and colors the great translator Elena Surits (1929–2022) conveyed perfectly in her translation.