This Should Be Written in the Present Tense
ABOUT
THE BOOK
This should be written in the present tense. But it isn’t.
Dorte should be at uni in Copenhagen. But she’s not.
She should probably put some curtains up in her new place.
And maybe stop sleeping with her neighbour’s boyfriend.
Perhaps things don’t always work out the way they should.
Dorte is twenty and pretending to study literature at Copenhagen University. In fact, she is cut off and adrift, living in a backwater in a bungalow by the rail tracks, riding the trains, clocking up random encounters. She remembers her ex Per – who had wanted to grow old with her, who had stood in tears on the driveway as she left – as a new world opens up: one of transient relationships, casual lovers, and awkward attempts to write. This Should Be Written in the Present Tense is a novel for anyone who has ever been young, sleepless, and a little reckless, trying to figure it all out.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Martin
Aitken
Martin Aitken’s translations of Scandinavian literature are numerous. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the DUBLIN Literary Award (2017) and the US Book Awards (2018), as well as the 2021 International Booker Prize. For his translation of Hanne Ørstavik’s Love he received the 2019 PEN America Translation Prize.
Martin Aitken’s translations of Scandinavian literature are numerous. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the DUBLIN Literary Award (2017) and the US Book Awards (2018), as well as the 2021 International Booker Prize. For his translation of Hanne Ørstavik’s Love he received the 2019 PEN America Translation Prize.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Helle Helle’s dazzling novel vibrates the underlying meaning and captivates the reader into a universe where the surface all the time is about to collapse. A minimalistic realism so precise that it drills deep into the reader and his contemporaries.