KRIGER UDEN MASKE – WARRIOR WITHOUT A MASK

By Hanne-Vibeke Holst

COPENHAGEN 1930, THE city is buzzing with jazz and hushed conversations about the troubled world order when 18-year-old Sonja makes her decision. She wants to become an artist. Against her mother’s wishes she applies to a Copenhagen art school. That is where she belongs – far away from her fashionable upbringing in Charlottenlund. 

SONJA IS DRAWN into a circle of young artists and poets, fired up by idealism and free-spirited experimentation. She is in love, and everything seems possible. The rejuvenating power of art and eroticism is the real answer to the nazism that is marching its way through Europe. The brush shall become her weapon.

WHEN THE WAR breaks out things turn serious. How far is she willing to go for her radical ideas – and for love. Would she risk her life, if that was asked of her?

WARRIOR WITHOUT A MASK is a dramatic story about the sculptor Sonja Ferlow Macoba and a vivid historical depiction of Denmark between two wars and occupied Paris. It is about Sonja’s uncompromising struggle for art and love and her eternal strife to bind herself to something greater and find her place in the world – as a woman, an artist and a warrior.

First published by Gyldendal, 2022 

Denmark, Gyldendal
Sweden, Albert Bonnier

“A powerful and readable novel”
– Kristeligt Dagblad

“An impressive novel that mixes art history and feminism”
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“Hanne-Vibeke Holst does not challenge the safe form, she perfects it. Her readers will love it”
– Politiken

“Elegant and complete”
Berlingske

“An impressive and thoroughly massive historical novel”
– Jyllands-Posten

“Nothing short of amazing”
– Bogblogger.dk

“Hanne-Vibeke Holst grants us a moment in time to reflect ourselves in. And ponder over”
– pov.international

“Well composed, served on a silver platter and ready to go”
– Bogvægten.dk

“Very well written with a plethora of strong passages”
– Litteratursiden.dk

“A very complex and powerful novel” 

Littuna.nu

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