Jan Sonnergaard

Jan Sonnergaard (15 August 1963 − 21 November 2016) was a Danish writer.

Early life and education

Born in Copenhagen, Sonnergaard had a MA in comparative literature and philosophy from the University of Copenhagen and a year at the Freie Universität Berlin from 1991-92.

Career

His literary debut was in 1997 with the acclaimed collection of short stories Radiator, published by Gyldendal. The second volume of his trilogy of short stories, Last Sunday in October was published in 2000, and the third volume, I am still afraid Caspar Michael Petersen, was published in 2003. In 2009, he published his first novel, About The Atomic Bomb’s Influence on the Youth of Vilhelm Funk, and since then he published novels and collections of short stories, as well as a play, and he has written numerous articles, features and op-eds in various newspapers and magazines, primarily Politiken.

Thematically, Sonnergaard's work is a criticism of the meaninglessness and monotony of life in modern Denmark. He writes in a very direct and often provocative language that vividly depicts violence, alcohol and eroticism. His literature is always a comment on his time, and his work is always a direct comment on contemporary life. The perspective is male, often with a retrospective glance at the years of Sonnergaard’s own youth or a visit to a foreign country. But the events of the past or that take place abroad – or simply on the island near Copenhagen called Amager – are always comments on the present day: Who are we? Why are we the way we are? How did we become us? What happened? Who and what has built us? For example, Sonnergaard’s first novel, About The Atomic Bomb’s Influence on the Youth of Vilhelm Funk is about the way the nuclear threat of the cold war was a subconscious motivation for many people’s lifestyle in the 1980s and how the yuppies and the punks lived each day as if it was their last.

Jan Sonnergaard is not accusatory when he examines the world. He is forgiving of both the past and the present and believes in the possibility that people can be decent.

As it is the case for all literature about the period in which it is written, some readers will read Sonnergaard as an accurate depiction of the era, while others will see the content as distorted images of the era. But few readers will refrain from comparing the text with the reality they know – this is Jan Sonnergaard’s strength as well as a challenge: The reader will insert him or herself into the text and compare the fiction to his or her own subjective perception of reality. Jan Sonnergaard’s texts are therefore able to create strong identification and the opposite, aversion.

His books have gained broad popularity, although the provocative choice of subjects and the direct language hampers a breakthrough as a mainstream author. Jan Sonnergaard’s work has been translated into Icelandic, Norwegian, German, Italian, Dutch, and Serbo-Croatian. He has also contributed more than ten short stories for the two American magazines: Absinthe and Metamorphoses. In 2015, Sonnergaard was appointed by the two Danish authors’ associations to sit on the Arts Foundation's Committee for Literature from 2016-2020.

Bibliography

• Radiator, short stories, 1997
• Last Sunday in October, short stories, 2000
• I'm still afraid of Caspar Michael Petersen, short stories, 2003
• About The Atomic Bomb’s Influence on the Youth of Vilhelm Funk, novel, 2009
• Old Stories, short stories, 2009
• Eight Edifying Tales of Love and Food and Foreign Cities, short stories, 2013
• Freezing Wet Roads, novel, 2015

Awards and Grants

Jan Sonnergaard has received several grants from the Danish Arts Foundation, including the three-year scholarship in 2005. He has received the Jytte Borberg scholarship, Henri Nathan’s Grant, Harald Kiddes and Astrid Ehrencron-Kiddes Grant and LO’s Culture Prize.