Naja Marie Aidt (b. Greenland / Denmark)
1963
This kind of oppositional poetics reappeared as well in her next collection, Huset overfor (The House Across the Way), which is centered upon a dialectic between desolation and abundance. The work established her as an important Danish literary figure. Writing in Det fri Aktuelt, critic Christian Yde Frosholm wrote of this book: “Naja Marie Aidt’s The House Across the Way is an unwavering and tightly composed depiction of how a dream is dashed: the dream of family.”
Over the next few years Aidt wrote short stories and three further volumes of poetry: Fra digterens hand (From the Hand of the Poet), Rejse for en fremmed (Journey for a Stranger), and Balladen om Bianca (Bianca’s Ballad), a text sharing its pages with sometimes bizarre and eccentric photographs of the graphic artist Kim Lykee. Aidt has also written dramas for the theater and radio plays.
Recent works of fiction include Bavian (Baboon) of 2006, Sten saks papir (Rock, Paper, Scissors) of 2015, and Har døden taget noget fra dig så giv det tilbage (When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back) of 2017.
For her short story collection Bavian, she won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 2008 and the Danish Kritikerprisen for 2007.
Aidt now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
BOOKS OF POETRY
Så længe jeg er ung (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1991); Et vanskeligt møde (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1992); Det tredje landskab (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1994); Huset overfor (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1996); Fra digterens hånd (Copenhagen: Borgen, 1996); Rejse for en fremmed (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1999); Balladen om Bianca (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2002); Poesibog (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2008); Alting Blinker (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2009); OMINA (with Mette Moestrup) (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2016)
For a selection of her poetry, go here:
http://columbiajournal.org/translation-5-poems-from-everything-shimmers-by-naja-marie-aidt/