Rediscovered: Helena Nyblom's Fairy Tales - with Rasmus Daugbjerg

Are trolls and dragons the true villains of fairy tales - or is it humanity itself? This question lies at the heart of Hovedbiblioteket's Golden Days 2026 spotlight on Helena Nyblom (1843-1926), a fairy tale author long overlooked but now finding new readers.

Nyblom's universe is neither simple nor safe. Her mermaids, mountain folk and trolls are not merely evil - they also grieve, and they often help the women and girls in her stories escape society's expectations. Beneath the fairy tale surface lie questions of power, gender and humanity's relationship with nature, giving her texts a quality that is at once classical and modern, poetic and grotesque.

Author Rasmus Daugbjerg - who himself writes about trolls, dark forests and people on the edge of the comprehensible - has written the afterword to the collection "Den bjergtagne" and speaks here about the fairy tale genre, Nyblom's authorship and his own attraction to literature's darker corners. He is interviewed by literary mediator Mathias Emil Stenrøs.

The event takes place live on Store Scene, 4th floor. Free tickets available via Billetto - note that sightlines to the stage are limited from certain seats.