Helle Helle: ‘While I wrote this book, I started hating the past tense’

‘Later she goes over the fields with a cauliflower. Goodbye to those Kong Fu slippers. All roads lead to roads. She carries on into Vestergade, past the front-gardenless houses. A man waves from his breakfast. But when you come from around here, houses aren't front-gardenless.’

When Helle Helle was working on the novel they, she started hating the past tense.

In this episode, we sit down with Helle in her home in the Danish countryside, outside of Sorø, for a conversation about finding sentences in the woods, knowing your persons (not characters), and her frequent use of an online crossword dictionary.

Interview: Rasmus Meldgaard Harboe

Producers: James Christensen and Mads Odgaard Smidstrup

Cover photo: Mikkel Carl

Original music by James Christensen

they is translated into English by Martin Aitken. Buy here.