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Life Hunger

Per needs to start over. A few years later, he needs to start over again.
And then one more time.

After the dissolution of his marriage, 48-year-old Per must reboot his life. He attends a wellness retreat and slowly learns to shed the burden of the past. Living in Denmark, often hailed as the happiest country on earth, Per soon becomes exceptionally adept at new beginnings. He embarks on a series of new business ventures, new relationships, and new outlooks on life, all while continuing to manage the fraught and turbulent joys of fatherhood, romance, and family life.

As he pursues his quest for self-improvement, Per starts teaching others self-help. His courses grow increasingly popular, but the people he’s closest to – his son, the juvenile delinquent he brings into his home, and the Iranian refugee he falls in love with – reject his teachings and his attempts to help. Despite the enlightened perspective he’s worked so hard to attain, the wounds of class and identity force him to confront the limits of his philosophy.  

Life Hunger is an unfiltered examination of our strange moment in history, letting us witness one person’s earnest attempt to find his place and be his best self in the disjointed world around him. The novel asks how far self-improvement can take you—and what might lie beyond.

 

Misha Hoekstra, finalist for the International Booker Prize, has translated LIFE HUNGER into English.

To inquire about this translation or about international rights, please contact Gyldendal Group Agency.

Reviews

“A one-of-a-kind, wild reading experience that tunnels deep into the human psyche through a whirlwind series of unpredictable scenes, while notions of happiness cartwheel dizzily before our eyes. Jungersen paints an insightful and unusually dynamic portrait of today’s modern man. The novel takes the pulse of contemporary existence and deliberate life choices. The linguistic flow of Jungersen’s prose is impressive, and his descriptions are gripping and dead on – even when, time after time, he breaks with convention and tricks the reader. The protagonist isn’t the only one who keeps trying out ways to make a new start. Jungersen leaps gracefully back and forth from crisp comedy (which he pulls off especially well) to profound psychological realism to nail-biting thriller.”
litteratursiden
“Jungersen’s writing is better than ever…. There is depth, beauty, and humor in his reflections on what it means to be a man and to be human. Life Hunger is remarkable, both as a novel about contemporary life and as a psychological portrait of a middle-aged man.”
Berlingske
“It’s brilliant and effervescent and at times thigh-slappingly funny. Jungersen’s new novel certainly covers a lot of ground – from the depths of the soul, through different moods and themes, to settings that range from Danish community gardens to a retreat in Bali and the Iranian Revolution. If the film rights haven’t been snapped up already, they will be soon.”
Børsen
“
Incredibly well written. It’s humorous in a tragicomic way, with identity, sexuality, masculinity, midlife crises, and power relationships as its central themes.
Femina
“
“An explosively well-written book. Multifaceted and utterly
unputdownable.”
Magasinet Liv
“
Once again, Christian Jungersen has given us a novel whose subject matter holds the reader in its merciless grip. A novel that’s been well worth the wait.
Dagbladenes Bureau