Published in 2018, ‘Efter Solen‘ (‘After the sun’) is a collection of short stories by Danish author Jonas Eika that won the ‘Nordic Council Literature Prize‘ in 2019. Eika debuted in 2015 with ‘Lageret Huset Marie’, a workplace novel about night work in a hi-tech non-food warehouse. ‘Efter solen‘ is a collection of short stories consisting of four extended stories: ‘Alvin’, ‘Bad Mexican Dog’, split into two separate parts (‘Rachel’, ‘Nevada’), and ‘Me, Rory and Aurora’. Every single story is surprising and startling, and they mark an exciting new departure in Danish literature. The stories are unpredictable, and there is an unusual sense of drive about them: the reader is simply drawn into another world in which we have no idea what may be waiting around the next corner. Another aspect is that the book is refreshingly sharp and well written, with striking imagery: the mental images are constantly creating connections, but we cannot predict where they will lead. The stories are rooted in a reality that is recognisable enough: they take place in Copenhagen, Mexico, London and Nevada, and deal with financial speculators, homeless boys who work as beach boys in an expensive resort in Cancun, drug users and people who believe in aliens. All things that are real, but the realism of the short stories has magical elements, as the texts are constantly expanding the reader’s field of perception: what we can see, what we can sense, is taken a step further. The passages that seem non-realistic represent an expansion of the sensory field, as the sensory aspects are in general given centre stage: there are many smells, sounds, tastes, feelings and sights in the book. The writing is full of an energy that is also erotic, sexual. ‘Efter solen’ has also been awarded the ‘Den svære Toer prize’ of the Danish Literary Writers’ Association, the ‘Montana prize for literature’ and the ‘Michael Strunge Prize’. According to the Adjudicating Committee, Jonas Eika is a young author whose collection of short stories ‘Efter Solen‘ has surprised and enthralled the jury with its global perspective, its sensual and imaginative language, and its ability to speak about contemporary political challenges without the reader feeling in any way directed to a certain place. Eika writes about a recognisable reality, regardless of whether we’re in Copenhagen, Mexico, or Nevada, and whether we’re among financial speculators, homeless boys, or people who believe in aliens. There is a real sense of poetic magic: reality opens into other possibilities, other dimensions. There is something wonderful and hopeful in it that reminds us how literature can do more than just mirror what we already know.
