Stig Dalager is a Danish writer. He is the author of 58 literary works of all kinds, mostly novels and plays, of which several have been translated or staged internationally. His works include I Count the Hours, a monologue for a woman in Sarajevo, staged in 12 countries; The Dream, play ; Two Days in July, Journey in Blue; a biographical novel about Hans Christian Andersen ; The Labyrinth "Land of shadows" ; and "Slowly Comes the Light". In 2012 the novel "The blue light" about Marie Curie was published and in 2013 "Eternity of the Moment", a novel about Søren Kierkegaard. 2015 his novel about Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg "Journey without End" was published and in 2017 his novel "Woman in a Century" about Elisabeth of Bohemia and his tale "The last days of the Rabby", also there was a worldpremiere of his play "Journey in light and Shadow" in New York. All in all published and staged in 30 countries, among them Great Britain, USA, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Russia, China and Japan.
Biography
Dalager was born in Copenhagen in the post-war period of the 1950s, a time of painful remembrances of the Second World War, continued economic restrictions, and a growing optimism about the future. His parents were grocers throughout the 1950s and 1960s, until his father was struck by Parkinson's disease. He describes his radically changing family structure as he and his two younger brothers moved with their parents to the provincial town of Herning in Jutland, near to where his father had been raised. There he graduated from high school, after which he attended the University of Århus, where he received his master's degree and a Ph.D. in comparative literature. It was there also where he became involved in the student movement of the 1970s. With his then fiancée, Anne Marie Mai, he wrote several books on literature, including a two-volume study of Danish women writers from the Middle Ages to contemporary times. In 1982 Dalager left the University of Copenhagento live as a writer, which he has continued to do since. He has written poetry, fiction, drama and essays. Several of his poems and novels have been translated into other languages, and he has seen his plays staged in Moscow, New York City, Berlin, and other cities around the world. Dalager's work concentrates on the existential conditions of both ordinary people and contemporary and historical known persons, with moments of psychological soul-searching expressed within a multitude of differing conditions. Dalager's diverse gallery of characters ranges from the woman of his Sarajevo monologue, I Count the Hours, to Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen in the playLord and Shadow and the novel "Journey in blue"; from the dissident Count Claus Stauffenberg and Adolf Hitler in his novel To dage i juli to dr. Simon Wiesenthal in his novel "Labyrinten". the 11th of sept. The poetry cycle Århaus-elegi of 1986 represents his poetic breakthrough. His most recent collection, Himlen åbner sig, was published in 2000. Dalager writes of his own poetry: "For me poetry gives room for a more intimate and personal reflection in an attempt to 'answer' some of the changes of our times. What has particularly been of interest for me as a poet is to try to find the words for the vanitas of things in the midst of our modern living. Having two daughters, 9 and 11 years of age, I have more and more come to see the emotions of love as the most important source of my writing." Three of his latest prose-works were the novels Journey in blue published in 2004, The Labyrinth in 2006 and Falling Shadows in 2007. Dalager's 2013 novel Øjeblikkets evighed and his 2015 Rejse uden ende are his most recent to have been published.
