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The handsome Danish author Peter Fogtdal took a break Friday to let me snoop around his apartment and ask nosy questions. He deserves a break, and a better one than I provided, after the fifteen months since his novel The Tsar’s Dwarf came out from Portland’s own Hawthorne Books. In that time he has done forty events in ten states to promote his book, taught at PSU, and accomplished the amazing international feat of simultaneously writing one novel in Danish and a different novel in English. I caught him in the midst of editing the Danish novel, which he had just finished writing two days earlier. Amidst his décor of beautifully misty Portland paintings and a collection of delicate old teacups, we talked about his life of travel and writing.
While Fogtdal has a long and distinguished writing career with twelve books to his credit, The Tsar’s Dwarf is the first to be translated into English. It tells the story of Sorine, a dwarf whom the king of Denmark gave to the Russian tsar in 1716. She is foul-mouthed, foul-tempered, and much smarter than anybody else in the book.
When I asked a question about traditions in what I stupidly termed “dwarf literature,” Fogtdal nipped that line of questioning in the bud. “I don’t know anything about dwarf literature,” he said, “because I’m not interested in dwarves at all. Not at all.” It turned out that Sorine was an accidental dwarf. Fogtdal was writing a book about Peter the Great and the Danish king Frederick IV, and their fractious 1716 meeting in Copenhagen. His main character at that point –who is a lesser but still important character in the final product – was Rasmus Aereboe, former Danish ambassador in St. Petersburg. “I got so bored writing that,” Fogtdal said. He put the first fifty or sixty pages away for a year. “When I came back to it, it suddenly dawned on me that I’d read several times that Peter the Great kept dwarves like other people collect stamps. So I figured oh my God, the protagonist has to be a dwarf.” After that, the novel became easy to write. Fogtdal was able to tap into his inner dwarf, the part of him that is angry at the world.
While Aereboe’s character was booted out of the main role, he was a real historical figure who provided many of the fine details used in the book. His diary was one of the main sources Fogtdal used to paint such a compelling portrait of eighteenth-century Russia. Aereboe was not famous while he lived, but his diary has become important to researchers of that historical period.
Many historical novels are dense and ponderous, but The Tsar’s Dwarf is a sparsely written page turner. “It’s my fourth historical novel, and you learn one thing,” Fogtdal said, “that all the info you find interesting is not interesting for the reader. And sometimes you wish that other historical novelists would realize that.” In his last drafts of novels, Fogtdal trims ten to thirty pages of extraneous details.
Hawthorne Books is Fogtdal’s sixth publisher – after three Danish, one French and one Portuguese. “I’ve been very happy with them,” he said. He estimated he is somewhere between 95 and 97 percent happy with the translation, although he says certain parts lend themselves more to the poetics of Danish than English.
Tiina Nunnally, who translated The Tsar’s Dwarf, is a Scandinavian superstar translator. “I’ve dreamed for ten years that she should do mine when I came out in English,” Fogtdal said. “She’s translated the best Swedish and Norwegian writers, and she’s done a damn good job with all of them. So I wanted her so badly.”
Fogtdal said it would be no fun to translate his own novels. “And my English wouldn’t be good enough. That’s the weird thing. My English, I think, is sufficient to write a novel in English, at least if I use a first-person persona that’s close to me. But it’s not good enough to translate my own novel.”
His first novel written in English is set in India and tells the story of a man who blames his guru for his life not turning out better. Fogtdal has been to India eight times and knows a thing or two about gurus. He has lots of material for his book and is very excited about it.
His simultaneous Danish novel is, unusually, a commissioned piece. He was asked to write a historical novel about a Danish explorer who traveled down the Nile in 1737. He was already busy, but felt that he couldn’t refuse the offer. “I wanted to say no but there was no way I could say no because the story was such a gift,” he said. “It was an unbelievable gift to me.”
When asked if it felt different to write a commissioned piece, he vehemently claimed the story had become his own. “I didn’t even want to take a cent of money before I had sat down and written twenty pages,” he said. “So I knew I wanted to do it. I am the furthest, I am many things, but I am the furthest from being a writer whore. If you gave me a million and asked me to do something and I couldn’t do it and it didn’t come from inside, I wouldn’t do it. I’m serious.”
“I guess you’ve never done any journalism,” I said. No, he agreed, he hasn’t. With images of editors swirling in my head (“We want you to profile a new meat market,” “Give me 1500 words on hemorrhoids”) I was starting to snarl, so Fogtdal refilled my cup with some of his delicious Earl Gray tea.
Fogtdal has long lived a nomadic lifestyle. He is a visiting professor in Portland, and doesn’t know where he will go next. Perhaps Hong Kong. One of his best travel experiences was in 2005, which was the bicentennial of the birth of famous Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. Danish embassies all over the world commemorated Andersen in different ways. The Vietnamese embassy invited Fogtdal to talk to youngsters about Andersen. “And then we made the very, very logical assumption why should I do that, why not play him?” Fogtdal said. He traveled to six Vietnamese cities, performing as Andersen, along with a Vietnamese actress who read two of Andersen’s fairy tales, an emcee/translator and a tech man. “It’s definitely one of the best experiences I’ve had in my whole life,” Fogtdal said. “And I mean, we were treated like rock stars.” The shows were a smashing success, except with the uber-sophisticated kids in Saigon. “Those were the kind of kids that listened for ten minutes and then they were on their cell phones,” Fogtdal recalled. “They were too Western. That was a struggle.”
Portland has been good to Fogtdal. A dedicated bicyclist, he appreciates the emphasis on biking here, although he said there are four times as many bicyclists in Copenhagen. The bike paths in his home country are also better. “Here you call it a bike path when you paint a yellow color on the street where the cars are driving as well.”
Bikes are especially important to Fogtdal because he has made it into his fifties without ever having a driver’s license. “I don’t drive,” he said. “Never! And I never even tried.” Since he was an adolescent, Fogtdal said he knew there were two things he should never do. “And that was have a gun in my hand and drive a car. And none of the two I’ve ever done. And I never will. It’s never going to happen to me. Never.”
In addition to Portland’s bike friendliness, Fogtdal loves the hippieish cafes around Hawthorne and Belmont, Portland’s international feel, and Portland State University. He is currently finishing teaching a course there on spiritual themes in literature. Next quarter he will teach European comedy and satire. In April, Fogtdal heads to Bainbridge Island to teach a two-day course in humor writing at Field’s End writers’ workshop.
Fogtdal doesn’t have any Portland events planned right now, but fans can read his blog posts at Danish Accent. And hopefully we will soon get the chance to read his first book written in English. The fact that The Tsar’s Dwarf was translated into English is a big deal for his career. “I always wanted to come out in English,” he said, “but then again, that’s a stupid thing to say because there’s not a writer in the world who doesn’t want to come out in English. Because then the world opens up to you.” Fogtdal is hopeful about prospects for his future projects. “I do get a sense of a new beginning now, that I’m going to hopefully a new level,” he said. “But I don’t know. We’ll see.”
Image credits Den Store Danske, Hawthorne Books, Danish Accent, The Goggles Do Nothing.
