Trouble with Happiness: and Other Stories (Penguin Modern Classics)

'So clear is Ditlevsen's eye that it is impossible to tear yourself away' John Self, Guardian

An unforgettable collection of stories from the author of The Copenhagen Trilogy

'The most important thing is probably always precisely the thing you can't have. That's where all the happiness is'

In these brief, acid-sharp stories of love, marriage and family from one of Denmark's most celebrated writers, the ordinary events of everyday life - a wife anxious not to wake her husband, a little boy losing his father's beloved knife, a woman's obsessive longing for a yellow silk umbrella - become dark and disconcerting. Here Tove Ditlevsen explores yearning, fear and the elusiveness of that strange thing called happiness.

'The purity and dazzling insight of Ditlevsen's writing speaks for itself' Daily Telegraph

'Authentic, unforced and utterly lucid' Sunday Times

'Ditlevsen's wonderful and devastatingly bleak short stories simmer with melancholy and despair' Daily Mail

Translated by Michael Favala Goldman



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