Narrative
Vangede billeder
Not translated into English
Dan Turèll · 1975
Synopsis
Vangede, a working-class district on the edge of the wealthy municipality of Gentofte, north of Copenhagen, seen by a boy who grew up there in the fifties. In twenty-four short chapters, interspersed with grainy photographs, family and friends pass by, the pastor, the doctor and the shopkeepers, everyone's quirks and everyone's solidarity. The sentences often begin with “And” and stretch into enumerations, in the spoken language of the place.
Context
Begun in 1973, the book was first meant to be a poetry collection: the publisher persuaded the author to cut into his enormous bundle of pages and to rewrite the poems as prose. It also rests on a vast gathering of memories from family and friends. It is the author's popular breakthrough; a square in Vangede has borne his name since 2007, and the book was reissued in 2015 for its fortieth anniversary with its original cover.
Who it is for
Twenty-four short chapters, with no continuous plot, with photographs. Nothing of it exists in French or English; the Danish title means pictures of Vangede.
Prizes and reception
Ranked twelfth in the list of the best Danish works of the twentieth century compiled by readers of Politiken in 2000.
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