A Difficult Death

“Morten Høi Jensen’s sensitive, wide-ranging study aims at providing readers today with . . . a chance to look beyond the early, painful, meaningless death that stole so much of Jacobsen’s energy and time to the achingly beautiful works he created.”—Julie K. Allen, Times Literary Supplement

“With admiration and pith, Jensen relates the importance and influence of Jacobsen as a great writer.”—Timothy Berge, Library Journal

“[An] elegantly realized biography . . . returning the authentic Jacobsen to a new generation of English readers.”—Dustin Illingworth, Los Angeles Review of Books

“A perspicacious study of an undersung writer written by a promising new talent.”—Michael Barron, Culture Trip

“This first critical study of Jacobsen in English is an engaging synthesis of biography, literary history, and cultural study, appetizingly written, and leaving the reader hungrily reaching to the shelves for the Danish classics.”—Marianne Stecher, EuropeNow

“A wonderful tutorial, in the vein of Janet Malcolm’s book on Chekhov.”—Garth Risk Hallberg, The Millions

“Central to Morten Høi Jensen’s introduction to Jacobsen, and indeed to the book as a whole [is] an underlying belief that literature matters and is important. And it is a belief that literature is about us—human beings—and not a mere linguistic sign referring to another linguistic sign.”—Claus E. Andersen, Scandinavian Studies

Winner of the 2017 J. P. Jacobsen Award from the Limfjord Region’s Literary Society in Thisted

“Morten Høi Jensen . . . brilliantly restores Jens Peter Jacobsen to a place in modern world fiction that should never have been vacated. This is one of the most elegant and incisive critical biographies I’ve read.”—James Wood

“Before I read Morten Høi Jensen’s A Difficult Death, Jens Peter Jacobsen was just a name I vaguely recalled from Rilke. But now he’s become, among other things, an intellectual hero. This book beautifully conjures he person, skillfully creates the world, and thoroughly explains the work—it’s as exemplary as literary biographies get. I’ve long regarded Jensen as one of the best young critics writing today, and A Difficult Death proves it.”—Tom Bissell, author of Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve

“J. P. Jacobsen’s work was ground-breaking, influential, and of rare perfection. Jensen’s is a deeply sympathetic and intellectually informed presentation of Jacobsen’s tragically short life, enigmatic personality and imaginatively challenging writings. This limpid and incisive book is commendably thoughtful.”—Paul Binding, author of Hans Christian Andersen: European Witness

“Offering a wonderful sense of intimacy with the life and works of Jens Peter Jacobsen, this book also wrestles with the difficult giants in the wings: Rilke, Strindberg, Ibsen and the brothers Brandes. A beguiling view of a rich literary landscape.”—Mikka Haugaard, translator of Marie Grubbe

“Jens Peter Jacobsen will be a marvelous discovery for many readers. Jensen introduces his life struggles and literary achievements with empathy, precision and an infectious awareness of why Jacobsen’s agon with faith and faithlessness remains timely.”—George Prochnik, author of The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World