Claus Beck-Nielsen/Das Beckwerk Denmark
Since 2001 the Danish author Claus Beck-Nielsen has worked under the name of Das Beckwerk. Das Beckwerk produces all kinds of art works from essays, theatre plays, musicals, installations, art exhibitions, concerts, albums, videos and serial photography to historic events.
The main activity of Das Beckwerk though is the production of literature. Among the most praised of his novels are Claus Beck-Nielsen (1963-2001) - a Biography (Gyldendal 2003), and The Suicide Mission (Gyldendal 2005) for which the author was nominated for the great Nordic Literature Prize in 2006.
Since the year 2003 Das Beckwerk has produced a “parallel world History”: Through missions in the field between art and politics Das Beckwerk has travelled to the hot spots of big politics in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and the US (to introduce The Democracy, stage dialogues and start revolutions). These missions in the field between literature and big politics have provided the material for the novels that Das Beckwerk is publishing in these years.
Das Beckwerk's latest book Suverænen (The Sovereign) was published by Gyldendal in 2008 and is perhaps best described as a Don Quijote for the new millennium. The Sovereign is the story about two Danish Europeans who sets out on a heroic journey to the new world of America to close the mental gap that has opened between the two continents. As representatives of the dying old Europe they want to stage a dialogue with the American President and, not least, his people.
The Danish paper Information called the book "... singular in the way that only a true work of art can be", while others thought is was "outstanding, intelligent" (Ekstra Bladet) and finally "a utopian project that is unequalled in Danish and Scandinavian literature" (Kristeligt Dagblad).
Rights sold:
Norway: Oktober
Selvmordsaktionen
(The Suicide Mission)
Gyldendal 2004
Claus Beck-Nielsen (1963-2001) - en biografi
(Claus Beck-Nielsen (1963-2001) - a Biography)
Gyldendal 2003