Aminas breve Amina’s Letters

After four years in lock-up, Janus gets out with a single intention in mind: to find Amina, the Turkish immigrant girl whose letters were his only lifeline inside the mental institution. Fearing for her safety, he is determined to find out why her letters suddenly stopped coming. With the illness nibbling at his heels, Janus chases after the fading traces of Amina: a journey that leads him to his old friends among Copenhagen’s junkies and homeless but also back in time, to the period before he developed paranoid schizophrenia. Janus’ quest finally brings him into the heart of Copenhagen’s middle-eastern community, as well as deep down into his own consciousness. Amina’s Letters is a powerful first novel, full of desperation and overpowering love. Told in a distinctive first-person perspective from one of society’s blind spots, it is addressed to all those who believe they know the difference between madness and sanity.

Awards

BG Bank First Book Award Denmark	2005
Shortlisted for Weekendavisen’s Literature Prize Denmark	2005

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Reviews

“Amina's Letters has the class of Nordkfrat written all over it. It's raw, angry and shows solidarity in the same way, and in the middle of all the madness the book quivers with a classic love story and social sympathy. Jonas T. Bengtsson portrays all kinds of suffering without a superfluous word.”

Weekendavisen, Denmark
“A hard-hitting, relevant debut novel!”

Berlingske, Denmark
“This is the hit of the season.”

DR Bog, Denmark
“A dark but thrilling novel.”

Jyllands-Posten, Denmark
“A stunning debut novel.”

Dansk Bibliotekscenter, Denmark
“In his furious debut, the young Danish author Jonas T. Bengtsson provides a short sample of his 24-year-old protagonist’s life. /…/ A man’s world. Female distress. Shrinks. The real world. The one underneath the normal. Obsession. Care and violence. Alcohol in XXL quantities. Longing. And the soundless calm before the storm. These are the ingredients of a Danish debut, whose prose one has to steel oneself against. /…/ Bengtsson’s language is vivid, minute, precise and of great elegance. His sentences all but vibrate under the powerful dynamic of the verbs, which are less concerned with spectacular actions than the prosaic and emotional.”

Deutchslandfunk, Germany
“This young, Danish author immediately lays claim on a wide range of things. Additionally, elementary urban plights are effortlessly peppered throughout the novel. /…/ He has penned a superb novel resembling a modern Odyssey.”

FAZ, Germany
“Jonas T. Bengtsson tells a story that ruthlessly reverts to realism, while still retaining a degree of humor.”

Neuer Züricher Zeitung, Switzerland