TorsdagsSalonen #11 When I Was Mentally Ill

TorsdagsSalonen returns after a few years' hiatus with its 11th edition - this time as a marking of World Mental Health Day. Herfølge Library hosts an evening where mental illness is illuminated through personal stories and music.

Peter Øvig is an award-winning author, and the title "When I Was Mentally Ill" is his own choice, rooted in his own experiences with psychiatry. Two of his books are central: "My Mother Was Possessed", which deals with his mother's depression and growing up as a child of someone with mental illness, and "I Am What I Remember", which describes electroconvulsive therapy that cured a deep psychotic depression.

Slagger Lund contributes with music and has himself been admitted as a psychiatric patient several times - experiences he has written about in his debut novel "An 80 Meter Bear". He received the Dan Turèll Prize in 2026, and his album "Noias Ark" is released two days after the event, on World Mental Health Day itself, October 10th.