The Trouble with Happiness
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  • Published: 3 March 2022
  • ISBN: 9780241584736
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $30.00

The Trouble with Happiness

and Other Stories

Formats & editions
Paperback
6 Jun 2023
EBook
3 Feb 2022
Audiobook
3 Mar 2022
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A shimmering collection of stories from the author of The Copenhagen Trilogy, translated into English for the first time

A newly married woman longs, irrationally, for a silk umbrella; a husband chases away his wife's beloved cat; a betrayed mother impulsively sacks her housekeeper. Underneath the surface of these precisely observed tales of love, marriage and family life in mid-century Copenhagen pulse currents of desire, violence and despair, as women and men dream of escaping their conventional roles and finding freedom and happiness - without ever truly understanding what that might mean.
  • Published: 3 March 2022
  • ISBN: 9780241584736
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $30.00
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About the author

Tove Ditlevsen

Tove Ditlevsen was born in 1917 in a working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen. Her first volume of poetry was published when she was in her early twenties, and was followed by many more books, including her three brilliant volumes of memoir, Childhood (1967), Youth (1967) and Dependency (1971). She married four times and struggled with alcohol and drug abuse throughout her adult life until her death by suicide in 1978.

Also by Tove Ditlevsen

Childhood
Vilhelm's Room
The Umbrella
There Lives a Young Girl In Me Who Will Not Die
The Faces
Childhood, Youth, Dependency
Youth
See all

Praise for The Trouble with Happiness

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

Tracey Thorn

A terrifying talent

The New York Times

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

The Paris Review

A beautifully written, resilient and relatable chronicle for the marginalized' (praise for Childhood, Youth, Dependency)

Patti Smith

Utterly, agonisingly compulsive . . . A masterpiece' (praise for Childhood, Youth, Dependency)

Guardian