My Grandfather and Cheminova

Johanne Mygind's family connection to Cheminova forms the basis of her novel "Giftig" (Toxic). The book's protagonist Nanna travels to western Jutland to write about her grandfather - like Mygind's own grandfather, he was operations director at Cheminova and thus partly responsible for one of Denmark's greatest environmental scandals. Working with her family's past becomes a personal and moral struggle: can one tell the truth about those you love without becoming poisoned by it yourself?

Mygind, who has also written the novel "Kærlighedens år" (Years of Love), speaks this evening about why she believes it remains important to talk about Høfde 42 on Harboøre Tange, where Cheminova dumped chemical waste from 1957 onwards.