Welcome


Welcome to the Tenth Issue of The Copenhagen Review. Ten, a nice Pythagorean number. It is our custom to allow each issue to remain undisturbed for some time. This affords the reader the time to return to the site again and again, gives the editor a breathing space, allows unexpected things to be added. We provide the option of looking at back issues as well (see above).

We live in strange times, some might say. With great moments that carry with them very definite agendas which encourage us to "change our way of living." Messianic messages assault us every day and we are confronted with a new kind of moralism. What was once permitted and even encouraged (expand your horizons, test your borders) is now seen as debauchery. And storms are in the air.

Drawing by Sif Sajin

What we bring here are smaller things. Poems, poetry, some reviews, a story or two, inspired travel, reflections on writers.

Poetry. From California, where Mia Paschal dances and enlarges our ideas of what theater is, she has given us a lovely poem on, yes, love. Ilija Trojanow is a busy man with a full range of writing projects, fiction, non-fiction, debate contributions to the leading German newspapers, poetry. We have selected three poems that are quite different than his normal work. From northern Denmark, Karsten Sand Iversen, Denmark's sovereign translator from at least English, German and Swedish into Danish, has allowed us to publish, in translation to English, his thoughtful essay on Langsame Heimkehr (Slow Homecoming), a novel by 2019's Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Austrian Peter Handke. On the opposite end of the production spectrum, we welcome Gloria Bee to the land of writing with her first published poem, a poem full of the right kind of indignation. In German. Another California resident and a regular contributor to TCR is Amy Trussell. Thank you Amy for two fine poems.

Herta Müller has sent us a collage of hers which we gratefully bring. In German.

Marianne Larsen's subtle poetic weavings are difficult to reproduce in English, but we have done our best and thank her for this timely poem. And under the wire, Jon Fosse sends us a poem written, well, now. March 30. We thank him for that. In New Norwegian and English.

Christopher Sand-Iversen has contributed at least two pieces (you never know what will happen between the writing of this Welcome until we go on line), a short story true to our times and an account of a recent journey to a very wet Venice where he was able to experience Larissa Sansour's "Heirloom" at the Biennale. We are grateful to him for both pieces as well and for many other things: his help in the technical and editorial tasks relating to this issue, to mention just two.

Eugenio Barba, of Odin Theatre has sent us a poetic exhortation: The Risk of the Hunter. And from Copenhagen, Inger Barbara C. Christensen has sent us an intimate tale of remembrance.

We thank our readers and their positive response to our efforts to bring good literature in troubled times.

And thanks to Sif, five years old, for our cover.

— The Editor


Worth the Read

Reviews

In English

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Herta Müller

Untitled. Collage

In German

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Marianne Larsen

Rude Awakening. Poem

In Danish and English

Read


Ilija Trojanow

Selections from Verwurzelt in Stein. Poems

In German and English

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Franca Mancinelli

Poems

In Italian, Danish and English

Read

Heirloom

Or the Inheritance of a Future Atlantis. Essay

Christopher Sand-Iversen

In English

Read


Amy Trussell

June 15, 1959-June 3, 2021

Two poems

In English

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Ravine

Short Fiction

Christopher Sand-Iversen

In English

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Gordon Walmsley

Coronocopia

Poem

In English

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Notes from Hypertourism

Travel

Jon Limani

In English

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Natural History

Essay on Peter Handke's Langsame Heimkehr

Karsten Sand Iversen

In English

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Gloria Bee

Duty Free

Poem

In German

Read


Mia Paschal

If love were something I could do

Poem

In English

Read

Photo: Esbjörn Hillberg

Inger Barbara C. Christensen

Fyret ved Verdens Ende

Short Fiction

In Danish

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Eugenio Barba

The Risk of the Hunter

Thoughts

In Italian and English

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Jon Fosse

Flying Backwards

Poem

In Norwegian and English

Read