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The Umbrella

By Tove Ditlevsen
Penguin Classics
Series: Penguin Archive
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Brief Description
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books The Umbrella evokes the delicate interplay of emotion and subtle storytelling. In the words of the author: "Then she would feel exposed and cry, as if her life and happiness were ruined for all time, even though... Read More
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90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books

The Umbrella evokes the delicate interplay of emotion and subtle storytelling. In the words of the author: "Then she would feel exposed and cry, as if her life and happiness were ruined for all time, even though she could still hide it from those she only came in contact with by chance or infrequently."

Longing shimmers from these spare but profoundly moving short stories by one of Denmark's most fearless and sharp-eyed authors. In these tales of inarticulate desire and repression, Tove Ditlevsen pulls to the surface our deepest interiorities in devastating, exacting prose.

Series: Penguin Archive

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241752258

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 17 April 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 6.0mm

Width: 110.0mm

Height: 180.0mm

Weight: 72g

Pages: 112

Collections

Classic Fiction Classic General Fiction Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Penguin Books Penguin Classics Penguin Classics: General Fiction Series: Penguin Archive Tove Ditlevsen

About the Author

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 the novels The Faces and Vilhelm's Room and her autobiographical masterpiece, Childhood (1967), Youth (1967) and Dependency (1971). She married four times and died by suicide in 1976.

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  • Childhood, Youth, Dependency
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  • The Trouble with Happiness
    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...
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  • There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die
    A new selection of poetry from the generation-defining author of The Copenhagen Trilogy, translated for the first time into English. While Tove Ditlevsen is now famous around the world as an extraordinary prose writer, in Denmark she has also long been celebrated as a poet. She published her first collection in her early twenties, and continued writing and publishing poetry...
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    New to Penguin Modern Classics, a searing novel from Tove Ditlevsen, author of the wildly acclaimed Copenhagen Trilogy. Copenhagen, 1968. Lise, a children's book writer and married mother of three, is becoming increasingly haunted by disembodied faces and taunting voices. Convinced that her housekeeper and husband are plotting against her, she descends into a terrifying world of sickness, pills and...
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  • Vilhelm's Room
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