EN NY TID – A NEW TIME

By Ida Jessen

IN A NEW TIME, the young teacher Lilly Høy moves to Thyregod to run her own school. 

SHORTLY AFTER GETTING there she marries the 20 years older doctor, dr. Vigand Bagge, and his death many years later becomes the starting point of Lilly’s journaling about their marriage, childlessness and life as a woman at the start of the 20th century. 

First published by Gyldendal, Denmark 2015 

Denmark, Gyldendal
Spain, Errata Naturae

“Underplayed and poignant, Jessen’s heathland drama of obsession, dependence and unspoken love is propelled by unerring prose. It’s a cracking read.”
Martin Aitken, translator

“Ida Jessen has written a formidable novel that thrives by virtue of strong women and a mysterious man. The plot is refined, and the intrigues tower high on the Jutlandic heath.”
– Politiken

“A monumental and historical epic with prairie poetry and pioneer spirit… Unusual and unusually fascinating.”
– Berlingske

“It is first and foremost a story about power, love and revenge and about a God-given world, where ‘life is as it should be’. Jessen allows her well-told and surprising story to progress slowly, planting seeds for the ultimate showdown along the way… With The Captain and Ann Barbara, [Jessen] has stepped back 250 years in time. However, there is also something completely current about it. Immigrants and hated population groups and the tensions that accompany them are only too well known today… Abuse of power has always been a scourge.”
– Kristeligt dagblad

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