Cecilie Eken (b.1970) published her first
work in 1993 – a fairy tale, Troldmandens Søn (The Sorcerer’s Son).
This was followed in 1995 by a more complex novel in the same genre, Kongebarnet
(Child of the King), which received a recommendation by the committee of
the Ministry of Culture Award for Children’s Literature. Two years later
Cecilie Eken received the 1997 Award itself for Sikkas fortælling (Sikka’s
Story), a novel inspired by ancient Greece.
One of Cecilie Eken’s themes is the inability
of society/people to acknowledge their own limitations. Sikka’s Story
(1997), for example, is about the desire for eternal youth on the part of the
Chimera, the ruling class on the island of Chileos. The Chimera have achieved
eternal life and unsurpassed beauty, but they have had to pay the price - they
are no longer able to have children. In order to compensate for this
deprivation, the Chimera induce a sense of euphoria by consuming the blue moss,
taurem, which grows wild on the island’s cliffs. Ordinary mortals, of whom our
main character Sikka is one, are made to gather this special moss. Sikka is a
very ordinary, somewhat cautious girl, who would not dream of rebelling - until the
day her sister plunges to her death… From then on everything is different.
Sikka assumes the role of rebel and liberator, and Cecile Eken’s Greek tragedy
soon turns into a very tense drama, in which Homer’s Iliad is brought to
the reader’s mind.
Through no fault of their own, Cecilie
Eken’s central characters get caught up in events which will change the course
of their lives. They usually start out as quite ordinary, maybe even rather
anonymous and unexceptional people (peasant boy, shepherd, moss-picker), who by
pure chance find themselves in a situation that leads them to assume a role and
demonstrate their true character.
The constellation of a young, inexperienced and usually humble figure
battling against power-hungry and ruthless grown-ups elegantly highlights
Cecilie Eken’s critique of adults’ sometimes-uncritical quest for the best of
all worlds. Exploring this in fairy-tale form makes it easier for children and
youngsters to grasp. Cecilie Eken’s talent for writing a fairy tale is
incontestable - both in terms of language and story there is the feeling of a
fantastical ease and elegance, which with just the right sense of vulnerability
speaks straight to the reader’s heart.
