Published in 1996, ‘Bang. En roman om Herman Bang’ (‘Bang. A Novel About Herman Bang’) is a novel by Danish author Dorrit Willumsen about Herman Bang that won the ‘Nordic Council Literature Prize’ in 1997. Born in Copenhagen, Willumsen embarked on her literary career in the mid-1960s and since then she has published novels, short stories, collections of poems and plays. She made her definitive breakthrough with the novel ‘Marie’, about the life of Madame Tussaud. In Denmark, she has been awarded the grand prize of ‘Det Danske Akademi’ and the ‘Søren Gyldendal Prize’. ‘Bang: en roman om Herman Bang’ is about writer, reporter, stage manager and comedian Herman Bang, generally considered one of the masters in Danish literature. The novel gives a description of Bang’s work as a reporter, his letters, events in his life and the memories told by friends and colleagues. The framework of the book describes Bang’s last journey on which he held a series of literary conferences in the USA in 1912: we meet the writer Bang lonely and tired on his arrival in New York, after he has left Denmark on account of persecution relating to his homosexuality. According to the Adjudicating Committee, Dorrit Willumsen’s novel about Herman Bang is a renewal of the biographic genre: with a sharp and beautiful language she lifts the topic above the modern artistic existence to a level where the specific individual takes on universal meaning and appeal.
