Description
Book SynopsisSet in rural Denmark in the early 20th century, A Change of Time tells the story of a schoolteacher whose husband, the town doctor, has passed away. Her subsequent diary entries form an intimate portrait of a woman rebuilding her identity, and a small rural town whose path to modernity echoes her own path to joyful independence.
Trade Review“Jessen is a talented and empathetic writer (and kudos must be given to translator Aitken, whose translation is supple and luminous), and has imbued a quiet story about a woman finding herself after her husband’s death with poignancy and stunning humanity.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “An engaging, honest, and beautifully written look at love, loss, and self-realization.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“In
A Change of Time, Ida Jessen has crafted a masterpiece of the epistolary novel told in diary entries. Each log is rich with detail ... Here, one-liners—beautifully translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken—are deeply felt.”
—Bookforum
“The text shines as an honest reckoning with the death of a spouse—but one in a deeply companionless marriage—and the life of two people who shared little but space ... Jessen, the Danish translator of Marilynne Robinson, among others, proves to have a keen Robinsonian streak of her own. She writes with the same narrative generosity, the same belief in the dignity and voice of characters that might usually be dismissed.”
—The Millions
“
A Change of Time is a book of masterful restraint, and this restraint is a kind of tenderness. It is a book that understands that desire permeates everything - nothing human can be be cleansed of it; and that sometimes love clings most inextricably to the smallest places - misjudgment, invisibility, loneliness. It is a book that deepens and dignifies both our innocence and our fallibility.”
—Anne Michaels, author of Fugitive Pieces “A masterful psychological portrait of an individual, who is set free into a new era, after many years of great loneliness.”
—Jury of the Danish Writers Association's Blixen Award for A Change of Time “A successful portrait of a widow and her coming freedom. Ida Jessen is sensible and solid in her historical novel
A Change in Time.”
—Mikkel Krause Frantzen, Politiken “One rejoices at how clearly and precisely the book is written.”
—Dagbladet Information “Once again, Ida Jessen has succeeded in creating a small masterpiece.”
—Weekendavisen
“Set in a rural Danish village in the early 20th century,
A Change of Time is a beautiful, quiet and reflective novel told through the diary entries of a schoolteacher called Frau Bagge . . . The novel charts her response to [her husband's] death and her attempts to build herself a new life, find herself a new place and identity and discover meaning in life again. An exquisitely written novel.”
—Radz Pandit, Rhadika's Reading Retreat
