Youth - Tove Irma Margit Ditlevsen

'Utterly, agonisingly compulsive ... a masterpiece' Liz Jensen, Guardian

The second volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, the searing portrait of a woman's journey through love, friendship, ambition and addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated twentieth-century writers

Forced to leave school early, Tove embarks on a chequered career in a
string of low-paid, menial jobs. But she is hungry: for poetry, for
love, for real life to begin. As Europe slides into war, she must
navigate exploitative bosses, a Nazi landlady and unwelcome sexual
encounters on the road to hard-won independence. Yet she remains
ruthlessly determined in the pursuit of her poetic vocation - until at
last the miracle she has always dreamed of appears to be within reach.

Youth, the second volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, is a strikingly honest and immersive portrait of adolescence, filled with biting humour, vulnerability and poeticism.