Akademik

(1957-)

   A novelist and short story writer, Høeg is Denmark's internationally best-known contemporary writer. His books have been translated into numerous languages, and all of them have appeared in English. Høeg wrote his first novel, Forestilling om det tyvende arhundrede (1988; tr. The History of Danish Dreams, 1995), during a six-year, self-directed apprenticeship as a writer. With features of narrative technique that transcend traditional realism, it shows influence from both magic realism and other elements of postmodernism. Present are also such serious motifs as a general critique of Danish society and criticism of the brutality with which children have often been raised. Høeg also meditates on what time is, how it can be understood, and how some people use the concept of time, not just time itself, for self-serving ends. Fortællinger om natten (1990; tr. Tales of the Night, 1997), Høeg's second book, is a volume of short stories about the conditions of love at a specific point, during the night of 19 March 1929. Høeg writes not only about romantic love, but also about the love of children, knowledge, and art.

   Høeg's greatest international success came with the novel Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne (1992; tr. Smilla's Sense of Snow, 1993), which contains elements of the thriller or crime story. The first-person narrator, Smilla, a Danish woman of Inuit descent, doubts the conclusion of the police that the death of a young boy named Isaiah was an accident. Smilla is an erudite amateur detective who pursues the case until she discovers that a corporate conspiracy with far-reaching tentacles is connected with Isaiah's death, and that there is a plan to profit from the discovery of a potentially very dangerous meteorite found on Greenland. Some of the people involved in the conspiracy are well-known scientists who want to use the discovery to further their careers. This scheme is then presented by the author as a metaphor for both how Danish colonialism has exploited the Greenlanders and for the way children have been mistreated.

   The narrator-protagonist in De maåske egnede (1993; tr. Border-liners, 1994) is a man named Peter who, as a child, had been passed from boarding school to boarding school. His experience is presented as paradigmatic of the lives of some of the weakest members of society, orphans, who are being subjected to attempts at forced socialization and threatened with a future as social outcasts if they do not conform.

   The novel Kvinden og aben (1996; tr. The Woman and the Ape, 1996) extends a critique of the scientific mind-set that is also found in Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne. The protagonist in Kvinden og aben is a Danish-born woman, Madelene, who is married to Adam, a deranged biologist whose ambition is to become the director of the London Zoo. Madelene discovers that Adam is hoping to reach that goal by experimenting on a unique and very intelligent ape named Erasmus, whom he is holding captive in a building behind their home. Madelene frees Erasmus, after which the woman and the ape become lovers and Madelene becomes Erasmus's tutor, helping him learn English and Danish. Kvinden og aben argues in favor of respect for others, including animals, shows the need to have reverence for nature, and severely criticizes human selfishness and greed.