“[A]s saturated with colours, sounds, scents, tactile sensations and fantastic imagery as hardly anything else I’ve read … Reffstrup’s prose is like a magic carpet, delicately woven with the finest threads”
5/6 stars
Lilian Munk Rösing, Politiken, Denmark
“Tightly and inventively Reffstrup weaves together to brilliantly fictitious, vibrant fates from 1913 and 1952 respectivel in a unique novel which should become a breakthrough for her”
Lars Bukdahl, Weekendavisen, Denmark
“Kirstine Reffstrup’s prose is beautiful and hypnotic … This is about body and atmosphere, about suggestive scenes and desire and seething matter”
Tue Andersen Nexø, Information, Denmark
“A magical story of living in two worlds … The Iron Lung lives and breathes precisely through Kirstine Reffstrup’s sense of prose and painterly ability to create literary images. This is excellent lyrical prose, tightly composed … With this novel, Reffstrup shows her powerful, poetic voice. A writer who isn’t afraid of plunging into bold fantasies”
Turid Larsen, Dagsavisen
“Reffstrup uses history to create a poetic, hard-hitting literary fantasy of social exclusion … In this year’s novel, Reffstrup raises the bar [from her debut]. Through prose that balances perfectly between the tangible and the abstract, she closes in on the individual experience of being different and suffering from a fatal illness … The author’s fascinating literary form encompasses both crystalline clarity and a more image-rich level … This easily-read, powerful, well turned novel articulates a strong, hopeful message: “The next great moment in history belongs to us.”
Astrid Fosvold, Vårt Land
“If you’re a good enough writer, you can persuade the reader to accept the most incredible things, like female draculas and reincarnation … The Iron Lung takes us to strange places … explores different aspects of being human in poetic, hypnotic, sensuous prose that makes the familiar unfamiliar and brings the eerie close to us”
Marta Norheim, NRK
“An epidemic fairy-tale … Reffstrup’s universe is mythological and lush … Reffstrup’s rich imagery and associative prose gives you a feeling of being in a dreamlike state, a fever fantasy, or deep underwater. Many parts are beautiful, sometimes light as a feather … a novel that wants something and dares something”
Elise Winterthun, Klassekampen
