Tváře – Ditlevsenová Tove (2024)

An urgent novel about a turbulent marriage, mental illness, healing, and the desire to write. Writer and mother of three, Lise Mundus, is married to a man who regularly cheats on her with the excuse that he won't sleep with a piece of literature. The writer is haunted by voices and distorted faces, convinced that her housekeeper and husband have conspired against her, and under the pressure of her delusions and tranquilizers, she descends into a terrifying world of illness, ending up in a closed ward of a psychiatric hospital. But is it not a certain kind of illness that is rather common sense? And what if mental illness is, on the contrary, a path to enlightenment and freedom? Lise fears that her husband will leave her, but what terrifies her even more is the thought that she might never write again. Can a stay in a treatment facility become an inspiration? The faces bring the experience of madness closer through the inner gaze of the main character with all the vividness of lived experience. And as is often the case with Tove Ditlevsen, her book primarily deals with the pain of love, desire, infidelity, and above all, writing.