Fine Gråbøl's narrator dreams of furniture flickering to life. A chair that greets you, shiny tiles that follow a peculiar grammar, or a bookshelf that can be thrown on like an apron.

Obsessed with the way items rise up out of their thingness, assuming personalities and private motives, the nameless narrator lives in a temporary psychiatric care unit for young people in Copenhagen. This is a place where you 'wake up and realise that what's going to happen has no name', and days are spent practicing routines that take on the urgency of survival - peeling a carrot, drinking prune juice, listening through thin walls.

In prose that demands that you slow down, expertly translated by Martin Aitken, What Kingdom charts a wisdom of its own.

Gråbøl, who previously published two collections of poetry, has a lyrical sensibility that shines through What Kingdom’s impressionistic vignettes and prose. Nuggets of beauty can be found everywhere… It’s the novel’s visceral quality that makes it a deeply affecting read. — Lauren Booker, The Rumpus

 

An incredibly moving and gripping novel... so sure-footed, clear, vibrating, like chiffon or a cigarette. — Olga Ravn, author of My Work and The Employees

 

Lolli Editions, 2024.