The Trouble with Happiness

Splendid short stories... the purity and dazzling insight of Ditlevsen's writing speaks for itself

Lucy Scholes, The Telegraph

An intense reading experience... so clear is Ditlevsen's eye that it's impossible to tear yourself away from the fates of her characters, however grim

John Self, Guardian

These short stories show off her astonishingly precise prose

New Statesman, Ellen Peirson-Hagger

A bracingly bleak selection of stories by the celebrated Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen... These are perfectly judged pieces: authentic, unforced and utterly lucid

Phil Baker, Sunday Times

Ditlevsen's wonderful and devastatingly bleak short stories simmer with melancholy and despair ... Her prose is clear and spare, pared back to the essential task of describing the struggle for an unwon freedom from domestic despair and unsatisfactory marriages

Daily Mail

The depths of desire and despair are Ditlevsen's subjects and illuminating them is her talent

Monocle

Ditlevsen's writing is crystal clear and vividly, painfully raw

The Paris Review

A terrifying talent

The New York Times

Her writing is incredible, so focused and clear. Not a word that doesn't need to be there

Tracey Thorn