My Work

After having a baby the writer Anna loses her place in the world.

Still in shock after the birth, Anna moves to a snowbound Stockholm with her Swedish boyfriend, Aksel, and their young son. The two soon fall into old-fashioned gender roles, a chasm opening between them. Anxiety threatens to swallow Anna as she reads too many internet articles and shops for clothes she can’t afford. To resist the looming madness she has to read and write herself back into her proper place in the world.

My work explores the relationship between motherhood and writing through a blend of prose, poetry, journal entries, and letters. It’s a novel about bringing children into the world; about postpartum depression, housework and shopping; and about learning to love the anxious, unboundedness of life with a child.

About the author 

Olga Ravn (b. 1986), a graduate of the Danish Academy of Creative Writing, made her debut in 2012 with the award-winning poetry collection "Jeg æder mig selv som lyng" [I eat myself like heather]. Her first novel "Celestine", a ghost story, came out in 2015; in 2018 she published the novel "De ansatte" [The employees].

Olga Ravn has just won the 2020 Politiken’s Literature Prize for "My work".

Text translated by Sharon Rhodes