The Danish Girl: A Novel
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- Synopsis
- Author's Note: This is a work of fiction loosely inspired by the case of Einar Wegener and his wife. I wrote the novel in order to explore the intimate space that defined their unusual marriage, and that space could only come to life through conjecture and speculation and the running of imagination. Some important facts about Einar's actual transformation lie in these pages, but the story, as recounted here with its details of place and time and language and interior life, is an invention of my imagination. In early 1931 when the news broke that a man had changed his gender, newspapers around the world ran accounts of Einar Wegener's remarkable life. (It is interesting to note that Lili Elbe herself leaked the story to the press, and wrote some stories about herself, including her own obituary, under a pseudonym.) Many of those articles were helpful in writing this novel, especially those in Politiken and other Danish newspapers. Another indispensable source was Lili Elbe's diaries and correspondence, which Niels Hoyer edited and published as Man Into Woman. Those journal entries and letters provided critical factual details of Einar's evolution, especially regarding Lili's first visit to Wegener's studio, Einar's mysterious bleeding and physical decline, and his journey to and stay at the Dresden Municipal Women's Clinic. The passages in my book that deal with these incidents are especially indebted to Hoyer's assemblage of Lili Elbe's original words. Nonetheless, I have changed so many elements of Einar Wegener's story that the characters in these pages are entirely fictional. The reader should not look to this novel for very many biographical details of Einar Wegener's life, and no other character in the novel has any relation to an actual person, living or dead.
- Copyright:
- 2000
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Excellent
- Book Size:
- 263 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9780670888085
- Publisher:
- Viking Adult
- Date of Addition:
- 02/20/04
- Copyrighted By:
- David Ebershoff
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Literature and Fiction, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender
- Submitted By:
- BookLady
- Proofread By:
- Carrie Karnos
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.