Faces

Tove Ditlevsen · 1917–1976 · Denmark

Originally Ansigterne (Danish)

Why it matters

A children's book author spirals into paranoid breakdown, convinced the faces around her hide a plot, while pills promise a calm she can't otherwise reach. Ditlevsen's harrowing companion piece to the Copenhagen Trilogy.

At a glance

Claustrophobic close third-person prose tracking a mind losing its grip.