How do you plant a hook in your reader? Swedish author Per Olov Engquist gave his view on the subject, during his visit to the book fair at the Forum in Copenhagen 13th-15th November, where he gave an interview to journalist Jes Stein Pedersen from the DR2 Deadline editorial staff.P.O. Engquist is popular in Denmark. He lived in Copenhagen for 14 years and was married to a Danish actress, theater director and cultural editor. He has written about Denmark and Danish historical figures many times - among them the fairy tale master Hans Christian Andersen - and worked as a journalist and a playwright. During this visit he talked about his most recent book, his autobiography Et andet Liv (A Different Life from 2008). About the pitfalls of writing about your own life, about different modes of narration from all knowing to the 'I narrator'.
The same did Danish author and a long standing member of the Danish Academy, Klaus Rifbjerg, whose literary production excedes all boundaries - from novels, to essays, to poems, to commentaries. Write it out in full - or burn it! his advice sounded. Rifbjerg read humoristic bits and pieces from his latest novel Dagstelegrafen (Daily Telegraph). About a mainstream cultural middle class family from the suburbs of Copenhagen and their haps and mishaps. Critics have called it twaddling. A bit like sitting next to an old aunt at a family dinner. In that case, at least she still had her wits and a sense of humour. With or without a hook.
In a quite different end of the book fair scale, there were presentations of books on political issues. Like the one presented by Niels Barfoed and Jan Bo Hansen, both journalists writing for the elitist Danish newspaper of Weekendavisen about the Cold War era (Tómis-A/Barfoed) and the fall of the Berlin Wall (Muren/The Wall, Hansen), and moderated by DR2 Deadline host Kurt Strand. The hooks in these books were espionage and counter-espionage. A sure thing to keep your audience fixed.