Stories from a world both fantastically strange and gruellingly familiar where flight, ruin, prejudice, and disinformation soar in an irresistible, susurrant fugue of human longing\nIn the four stories that make up The Dolls , characters are plagued by unexplained illnesses, oblique, human-made disasters and environmental losses. 
A big sister descends into the family basement. 
Another sister refuses her younger brother. 
A third sister with memory loss is on the run, seeking shelter at Notpla. 
A fourth set of siblings travel to Hungary with their late mother in a coffin. 
They each have a different version of their mother’s story. 
Drawing on the likes of August Strindberg, Franz Kafka, Andrej Kurkov, Knut Hamsun, T.S. Eliot, Béla Tarr, and Hieronymus Bosch, Scavenius’s universe is chilling and excruciatingly seductive. 
In it, nothing can be said to be true anymore. 
After all, anything can be propaganda today.\nPraise for The Dolls : 'Ursula Scavenius is one of the most exciting Danish short story writers at work today. The Dolls , in Jennifer Russell's magnificent translation, is a literary page-turner: haunting, mesmerizing, and unforgettable in all its grotesque glory.' 
– Katrine Øgaard Jensen “This is a universe that paints everything forth in grey, hushed strokes. 
It is contagious and all-consuming; even a space roadster could appear without the reader raising an eyebrow. 
A silver thread of ethical and moral degradation runs through the entire collection, all fig leaves are burnt, and humankind cannot escape its responsibility of having destroyed the world. 
Dramatic, hysterical and supremely well-written. 
Christine Lind, Ditlevsen, POV International. 
"Because of the Scavenian style and method, these allegorical sets become effectively and thoroughly, almost claustrophobically, intimidating. The more and the longer the narrative gets stuck into its dark morass, the more diabolical the reader experiences their own confinement, and they become desperate about not being able nor willing to escape, all because of the very power of fascination." – Lars Bukdahl, Weekendavisen, "The language draws the reader into a floating dream-like state that makes the reading experience disturbingly beautiful." Emma Karlebjerg, Litteratursiden "When you read Scavenius you often and suddenly have doubts about whether you can ever truly share an experience with someone else in that place which we call reality. 
Scavenius writes like that! 
Here, the weird and the ordinary speak the same language. 
Her beautiful prose, which draws not only on the traditions of Kafka and Poe, but also on M.R. James, Henry James, Arthur Machen, Astrid Ehrencron-Kidde and others, is a quiet but powerful attack on the security we have in life that all too often keeps us from asking the most relevant questions about being human.– Danish Arts Foundation\n"Skilfully crafted and shocking stories that are uncompromising in their insistence on describing without explaining. Or put differently: the stories feel like testimonies from people who do not themselves understand what is going on. Scavenius’s dystopian narratives are hard to put down, reminiscent of both historical crimes and current crises."– Kristin Vego, Information "The Dolls is grotesque, a little bit humorous and above all, very well-written. Scavenius is her very own thing, her prose is carried by sensations and moods. Although she is not without predecessors, it is truly spectacular that Scavenius’s books are so unlike other Danish works being written today."– Mikkel Krause Frantzen, Politiken

The Dolls

Literature & Fiction

Ursula Scavenius and translated by Jennifer Russell

Contemporary

Lolli Editions

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Books by Ursula Scavenius and translated by Jennifer Russell

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ursula Scavenius and translated by Jennifer Russell. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Dolls