Copenhagen Song of Songs

A vibrant novel about the search for the love of the century, great losses and second chances

The family saga, in which the shy painter Esther depicts the fate of three generations living under one roof, takes place in Copenhagen, on the stage of the Paris Opera and at the Sovalskaya Circus in the suburbs of St Petersburg.

When Esther's grandfather Hannibal buys a house in Copenhagen in 1921, he imagines a home imbued with opera, bohemian spirit and love as intoxicating as in Solomon's Song of Songs. But for his bride, the Russian artist Varinka, the time of miracles was over the moment she saw with her own eyes how her first lover disappeared in the throat of a hippopotamus.

However, Hannibal and Varinka's daughter, the stewardess Eva, a lover of magic and apparently clairvoyant, develops a much more passionate relationship with the Swedish pigeon-tamer Jan Gustav. Hannibal's desire for love and art is transferred to his granddaughters, twins Esther and Olga, who compete to become the family artist, while their older sister Filipa aspires to become the world's first female astronaut.

If you need adventure, love, and a guide to looking at the world with a little more compassionate eyes, read the heady, riveting, and fantastic Copenhagen Song of Songs. The narrative rolls, rushes and winds in such a way that one has to hold on to the chair with one hand and just turn the pages with the other.
— Femina

It's absolutely miraculous how Annette Bjergfeldt can deliver a narrative in colour, tone and feeling. [...] Her debut novel is admirable and one can only look forward to more minor miracles from her pen.
— Politiken

Annette Bjergfeldt's first novel is a firework of imagination and brimming with wordplay. even with sentences. [...] A wonderful novel sparkling with humour.
— Wednesday