Journey in Blue: A Novel about Hans Christian Andersen

"In Journey in Blue Stig Dalager has conjured up the complex personality of the Danish master storyteller Hans Christian Andersen to create a portrait of the writer." "Andersen's life swims into focus in fragments as morphine is administered to him in his final days. His interactions with the men and women who influenced his life and work reveal how he transformed his experiences into literature, including his celebrated fairytales. Yet his painful search for literary validation and religious certainty, combined with other longings that he is not always able to identify or control, often result in him feeling alienated, even tormented, and unable to understand why the Danes should have ambiguous feelings about him and the significance of his writings; for years he felt unrecognized as a major artist in his own country." "This novel is Dalager's first to appear in English and is one of the most translated Danish novels of recent years. It takes the reader on an absorbing journey through the mind, spirit and imagination of one of the most important names in world literature."--BOOK JACKET.