Også om mange år (And In Many Years to Come) was the title of Kirsten Holst’s first, prize-winning book for young people from 1981. But it could just as well be a description of the relevance of what she has written. When the book was published, one reviewer wrote: “This book will be read - also in many years to come”. And it is typical of Kirsten Holst that in books which she
fills with figures of flesh and blood, she addresses themes and human problems that have universal relevance.
Kirsten Holst grew up as a member of a large family in Central Jutland. As an adult she taught, free-lanced for Danmarks Radio and wrote her first short story in 1968. She only turned to writing for children in 1976 because her three children were asking for books containing stories that were less predictable than most on the market in the seventies.
And what was more obvious than writing a proper thriller? Safty og smuglerne
(Safty and the Smugglers) was published in 1976, and in the following years there were three more books about Søren Saftevand. In this series, Kirsten Holst draws a lively picture of a little town on the west coast of Jutland, where the weather is not the only thing that marks a great difference between summer and winter. These are high-quality, entertaining and straightforwardly exciting children’s whodunits about a motley crew of children, all of them with their own personalities. Safty and his friends can think, and they solve lots of mysteries, but at the same time they are wise enough not to be averse to asking the police or other grown-ups for help when the need arises. During the same period, Kirsten Holst wrote another entertaining series of detective thrillers especially intended to be easy to read. These evolved into three books on “The Kids”.
In 1981, Kirsten Holst’s children had reached the age when she allowed herself to be
inspired to write her first novel for young people. Også om mange år is a modern and ever-relevant novel about Nete, an immature and somewhat confused girl who flees both from herself and her feelings and stubbornly refuses to see that the immediate world around her is about to fall apart. The recognition of this is painful, but nevertheless by the end of the book, despite her mother’s death and her father’s bankruptcy, Nete is better equipped to be faithful to herself and her love and to go on with her life.
The two later novels for young people, Min ven Thomas (My Friend Thomas) from
1987 and the independent sequel from 1996 Var det kærlighed? (Was it
Love?) show clear signs of having been written by an author who really understands the special devices of the detective novel; the art of suggesting. At the start of both novels there is a hint that something fateful has taken place, after which Kirsten Holst takes her reader back with her, and bit by bit they find the pieces of the jigsaw, so that once you have begun, you can’t put the book down. In these two novels, Kirsten Holst deals with contemporary problems, but it is just as important that they are about friendships and love between young people, portrayed with insight, closeness and a liberating sense of humor.
Whether writing for small children or young people, whether they are books that are easy to read or books that are a little more difficult, the dialogue is a crucial element. By means of precise and appropriate dialogue devoid of false tones, Kirsten Holst gives us such a varied picture of each individual in her gallery of characters that many of them remain in our memories. It is not all children’s books in the realistic genre for which one dares predict a future - also in many years to come. When a reviewer dared to do so in 1981 with regard to a novel which Kirsten Holst had written for young people and which had a social and realistic content, it was because of her ability to concentrate on the universal, the essential quality of being a human being.
Kirsten Holst’s approach has hitherto been one of contemporary realism, and so in her book, Rejsen til Betlehem (The Journey to Bethlehem) from 1996 she seems to be turning in an unexpected new direction. However, in consideration of her sense of the universal, it is not at all surprising that she shows how she is able to move in a historical element like a fish in water. Rejsen til Betlehem is purely and simply the Christmas story in Kirsten Holst’s quite personal interpretation. Written with the author’s never-failing sense of simplicity, closeness and straightforward excitement. The ten-year-old Roman boy Marcus is the main character, and among those we meet together with him are the three wise men, the evil King Herod, Mary and the Infant Jesus, not to mention Mary Magdalene; meanwhile, the camels chew their cud, and we inhale the spiced perfumes and experience the colourful throng in the market places, where danger lurks ...
Kirsten Holst has received several prizes for children’s literature, and in 1981 she was awarded the Poe Prize for her detective stories for adults.
