they

Translated by Martin Aitken

From the award-winning, cult Danish writer, they by Helle Helle is an exquisite portrait of a mother and daughter. It will be followed by Giramondo’s publication of Hafni Says in September 2026 and Hey Hafni in February 2027. All three novels are all set in the same fictional universe, with recurring characters and settings.

‘They go for a walk by the playing fields, the anemones are out.’

They – a mother and her sixteen-year-old daughter – live in an apartment above a hairdresser’s shop in a small island town. Each day is marked by routine and quiet intimacy. They are so enmeshed, so alike in their manners and opinions, it can be hard to tell them apart.

Then the mother begins to feel unwell. They carry on with their lives, talk about anything but the diagnosis. The mother goes in and out of hospital, and the daughter, just starting high school, makes new friends – Tove Dunk, Hafni, Bob, Desert Boots – but remains essentially alone. Illness, and the possibility of loss, cast a growing shadow over her life.

Writing in a multi-layered, perpetual present tense, Helle Helle finds a tender voice for the comedy and awkwardness of her heroines’ lives, rendered into riveting and affecting English by acclaimed translator Martin Aitken. they is an exquisite portrait of the fragile love between a mother and daughter, and a love letter to 1980s life on the island of Lolland, where the author grew up.

Strangely, wonderfully absorbing… [Martin Aitken] captures perfectly the texture of Helle’s sentences, their lilting rhythm and slow focus… Slow your heart, slow your attention span – you’ll be mesmerised.
The Telegraph (5 stars)

Helle Helle will enchant readers with this short and subtle coming-of-age novel… Martin Aitken’s wonderful translation captures Helle’s virtuosity as a writer – the luminous presence she brings to the present tense, the terse transfiguration of the ordinary into poetic strangeness, the understated humour and unspoken pain of losing a parent so young.
Sydney Morning Herald, Fiction Book of the Week

Lyrical and understated… Readers will relish this simple tribute to the preciousness of days spent with loved ones.
Publishers Weekly

Helle, along with Olga Ravn and Solvej Balle, is part of a wave of Dan­ish fic­tion that’s one of the lit­er­ary world’s most excit­ing trends, and this novel is an espe­cial gem – a rare mix of the absorb­ing, the sad and the vis­ceral.
The Daily Telegraph

Helle Helle’s they is a deceptively slight, minimalist novel that packs a huge emotional punch in its superb translation… Helle is an exquisite stylist who details both the sensory surfaces of life and the intimacy inherent in any interaction.
Shelf Awareness

A marvel… There is no sentimentality in this beautiful novel, but adjustment, compassion and wonder.
Irish Times

Sweetly oriented to a disciplined, detached way of telling, Helle balances glassy brilliance with radiant feeling. Unyielding and firm, they is a work of glorious, serene grace.
The Saturday Paper

A novel suffused with a daily grace… its own self-contained loop, a perpetual present where no one grows up too quickly and no one dies.
Brooklyn Rail

A masterclass in how details and routine reveal the realities of a life… Despite the heart-wrenching plot, laughter is on almost every page.
LitHub

One of those novels where little is spoken but everything, by the end, gets said… Precise, controlled and unforgettable, they is a book that begs the reader to slow down and take notice.
The Guardian