Tove Ditlevsen was born in 1917 in a working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen. Her first volume of poetry was published when she was in her early twenties, and was followed by many more books, including her three brilliant volumes of memoir, Childhood (1967), Youth (1967) and Dependency (1971). She married four times and struggled with alcohol and drug abuse throughout her adult life until her death by suicide in 1978.
Tiina Nunnally is an award-winning translator and author. She translates works from Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. She was awarded the prostigeous PEN Translation Prize in 2001.