Helle Helle was born in Denmark in 1965. She is a graduate of the Danish Academy of Creative Writing and the author of a number of novels, as well as two collections of short stories. She is one of Scandinavia’s most original writers, with a career spanning three decades, from her debut Example of Life (1993) to her most recent novel Hey Hafni, published in 2025 to rave reviews. Her books have been translated into twenty-four languages.Martin Aitken is an acclaimed translator of Scandinavian literature, including works by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Hanne Ørstavik and Olga Ravn. He has received the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Translation Prize, the US National Translation Award in Prose and the PEN America Translation Prize, among other awards. His translations have also appeared on the shortlists of the DUBLIN Literary Award, the US National Book Awards and the International Booker Prize.

'Like a multifaceted jewel, or a particularly glossy bead of salmon roe, Hafni says shifts and scintillates, in turns pensive, sad, humorous, wondrous, heartbreaking, but all of its moods carry the traces of the others, which is to say: the weight, the longing, the texture of a whole life. This is the saddest, strangest, realest road trip book I've ever read.'

Helle Helle was born in Denmark in 1965. She is a graduate of the Danish Academy of Creative Writing and the author of a number of novels, as well as two collections of short stories. She is one of Scandinavia’s most original writers, with a career spanning three decades, from her debut Example of Life (1993) to her most recent novel Hey Hafni, published in 2025 to rave reviews. Her books have been translated into twenty-four languages.Martin Aitken is an acclaimed translator of Scandinavian literature, including works by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Hanne Ørstavik and Olga Ravn. He has received the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Translation Prize, the US National Translation Award in Prose and the PEN America Translation Prize, among other awards. His translations have also appeared on the shortlists of the DUBLIN Literary Award, the US National Book Awards and the International Booker Prize.

'Like a multifaceted jewel, or a particularly glossy bead of salmon roe, Hafni says shifts and scintillates, in turns pensive, sad, humorous, wondrous, heartbreaking, but all of its moods carry the traces of the others, which is to say: the weight, the longing, the texture of a whole life. This is the saddest, strangest, realest road trip book I've ever read.'