Am I Cold
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Copenhagen, 2008. Excess is in, austerity is out. The international crash is about to send everything tumbling down, but everyone's too wasted to notice. And Mikkel Vallin's own bubble has already burst. Divorced, left by his girlfriend for a successful author, sacked from his job as a food critic, the wrong side of forty, Mikkel has had enough: he's declared war on the monogamous relationship. Jealousy, deceit, hatred ... it's enough to make you wonder if we'd all be better off just sleeping with who we wanted for a change.
Fortunately, his new girlfriend - a successful, young, beautiful Hungarian artist - agrees. Unfortunately, Mikkel might be falling in love with her. Among the orgies, the drug-fuelled sprees, the whirlwind of parties, surely there can't be space for ... love?
Told in Mikkel's brilliantly spiky, terminally cynical deadpan, Martin Kongstad's excoriating debut novel turns the last, glorious, debauched days of pre-crash decadence into a wild satire of modern life.
Translated by Martin Aitken.
Martin Kongstad
Martin Kongstad has worked for many years as a journalist, columnist, culture writer and food critic at Denmark's leading newspapers and magazines, and has written for film, television and theatre. His debut collection of short stories Han danser på sin søns grav (He Dances on his Son's Grave) won the 2009 Debutant Prize. He grew up in Copenhagen and lives today in Nørrebro. Am I Cold is his first novel.
Martin Aitken
Translated by
Martin Aitken’s translations of Scandinavian literature number some thirty-five books. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the International DUBLIN Literary Award (2017) and the US National Book Awards (2018), as well as the 2021 International Booker Prize. He received the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019.
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