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about the authors & works
Per Højholt
Per Højholt (born in Esbjerg, Denmark, 1928) is most well known
as an experimental Danish poet who, despite his determination
to continually push boundaries, linguistic and otherwise, was
widely read and extremely influential in Denmark. By the time of
his death in 2004, his bibliography had grown to include, among
other things, over twenty poetry collections, numerous short
prose works, three essay collections and three novels. He was
also active in the fields of radio and television. Højholt received
numerous literary awards throughout his career.
Auricula
is amonstrosityof abook, a labyrinthinecompositionwith
no obvious plot whose baroque sentences may fill half a page or
more. The novel’s ostensible subject is a group of ambulating ears
that, capable solely of self-hearing, are the product of a silence
that briefly fell across Europe in 1915. Twenty years in the making,
Auricula
is often read as Højholt’s masterwork, his poetics put
into praxis, an extended meditation on the juxtaposition of the
imaginary and the real.
Auricula
’s importance, however, does not
lie in the place it occupies in the oeuvre of one of Denmark’s most
celebrated and unorthodox poets, but rather for the sweeping
picture it provides of twentieth century art and culture.
Translated from Danish by Kerri Pierce.