Peter Adolphsen Denmark
Born in 1972. Peter Adolphsen made his debut in 1996 with Små historier, unanimously hailed as a masterpiece by Danish critics. The book was followed up in 2000 by Små historier 2. Adolphsen has been editor of the literary magazine Den Blå Port, and has written for the Danish daily newspaper Information. He teaches at Forfatterskolen in Copenhagen.
Adolphsen's latest project Katalognien (2009) is a novel written in verse in collaboration with the author Ejler Nyhavn. This experimental novel followed the 2007 title En million historier (One Million Stories) which is constructed similarly to Raymond Queneaus' Cent Mille Millards de Poemes, with an intricate system of strips on each page that can be combined randomly. The book consists of ten short prose texts. Each page holds six stories of two-lined text. In other words, ten to the power of six: one million stories.
En million historier
(One Million Stories)
Samleren, Copenhagen, May 2007.
Is the elephant keeper, the lorry driver or perhaps the drunken bank manager to fly, crawl or find his way up onto a trampoline, down on his knees or roam the countryside? And is he to kiss the milk maid, strangle the cleaning lady or smile foolishly at the girl next door? Or?
En million historier (One Million Stories) is constructed similarly to Raymond Queneau’s Cent mille milliards de poemes, with an intricate system of strips on each page that can be combined randomly. The book consists of ten short prose texts. Each page holds six stories of two-lined text. In other words, ten to the power of six: one million stories.
Excerpts from reviews:
“(…) miraculous (…) no one but Adolphsen makes the game work so impressively and divertingly well – and Adolphsenesque. (…) I could ramble on endlessly about the masterly fun of this book and preferably written a million reviews , but I cannot help but read another of the million stories. “ (Weekendavisen)
“Adolphsen’s newly written opener is a deserving product of Ouvroir de littérature potentielle. There is a strange closeness, pressure, strength and grotesque fantasy in every one of the 60 little strips of text of each to lines. “ (Politiken)
Machine,
Samleren, 2006
Machine was selected as a book of the year by the Irish Times:
‘This highly original Danish writer follows the journey of that drop of oil in a masterfully metaphysical narrative worthy of Pynchon”
Longlist IMPAC PRIZE 2009
Machine is about the life of a small drop of oil; from its very beginning as a tiny primaeval horse's heart 55 mio years ago until it is rebored, refined as petrol and burnt in a motor. There are two main characters and their stories are interwoven with the drop of oil, the Aserbadjani Djamolidine who emigrates to the States at the beginning of the 70'ies and changes his name to Jimmy, and the Texan biology student Clarissa who finally inhales the oil as exhaust.
Rights sold:
Norway: Tiden Norsk Forlag
Germany: Carl Hanser Verlag/Nagel & Kimche
World English rights: Harvill Secker
USA: MacAdam/Cage
Netherlands: Cossée
Spain: Lenga de Trapo
Serbia: VBZ Beograd
Israel: Simtaot Books
Brummstein,
Samleren, Copenhagen, 2003
Brummstein is what the Germans call an ”Erzählung”, i.e. a long story or a short novel. And as always with this author, it is a text that makes the reader existentially dizzy! – It is, literally, about a humming stone. At the beginning of the 20th century an amateur geologist climbs deep down into a cave in Switzerland believing that he will find the door to another world, or underworld. Instead he finds a wall that makes a humming sound so loud that for a little while it makes him deaf . He carves a piece of the stone, and everyone who puts an ear to it can now hear the humming. We follow the stone through the century, from person to person – from holocaust to post-war times in an East German orphanage - and finally the stone ends up as a museum piece in Cologne. It is a tale of many layers. Mischiveous and learned.
Rights sold:
Germany: Nagel & Kimche
Netherlands: Cossee
Norway: Tiden
Sweden: Alfabeta
France: Gaïa
Italy: Fazi
Spain: Lengua de Trapo
Israel: Simtaot Books
World English: Amazon Crossing
Små historier og
Små historier 2
(Small Stories),
Samleren, 1996 and 2000