The Courage of his Convictions

Kåre Bluitgen is a political writer who puts across his

By : Steffen Larsen

During a tour of Central America in 1980 Kåre Bluitgen visited San Salvaor. He was in the square in front of the cathedral on he Sunday when Archbishop Romero was shot own by soldiers. This experience, and the journey as a whole, which took up more than six months, had a decisive influence on the author's future.

Smells and Sounds
Kåre Bluitgens's first book published as recently as 1987, when Ernesto(Ernesto) appeared from Gyldendal. It is a story about partisans and living conditions in a Central American country, and introduces the main theme in the books that followed: to choose/dare to be answerable for the cost.
   But first one must be aware that there is a choice. And this is what the main character in Ernesto has to learn, that "the choice" involves more than a brand of soft drink or the local football team. From the start Kåre Bluitgen makes it obvious that he is a political Writer, but he does not preach, 'he presents his story from these remote places interwoven with sounds and smells. He uses his senses because he has seen it all.
   Here it should be said that during the hectic. Marxist trench warfare of the 1970s there was a dis­proportionately large flood of "socialistic" literature in Denmark, only a small proportion of which was of any real worth.
   The reverberations from these books are still felt in discussions on children's literature here and have given rise to their antithesis: an immense wave of fantasy books; so it is remarkable that Kåre Bluitgen has dared to swim against the stream, dig up, old 'virtues' and bravely de­clare that for him there are "right and wrong convic­tions".
   For instance, it is wrong for white people in South Africa to oppress the black ones. Bomuldens dronning (Queen of Cotton), is a hair-raising story about a boy who hastens across country with the papers that will free his sister from prison, while the reader al­ready more or less ' realises that she can no longer be saved. A very strong con­trast between the innocent boy and the world outside. While writing the book the author made contact with members of the ANC and Southern Africa. He wished to avoid any errors...
   Similarly, Kåre Bluitgen asked advice from the Palestinians when writing Vi har iført os ligklæder (We put on shrouds), which describes the highjacking of an aeroplane and what led to this desperate action. Again everything is seen through the eyes of an innocent boy but is supplemented by recollections from some of those who survived the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. There are certainly some traumatic episodes in this book. It sails in sensitive waters, but gains harbour successfully by telling the whole story ‑ about big and small villains and allowing readers to think and feel for themselves.

Politics and Poetry
Kåre Bluitgen has often been compared to the great South American story tellers, and to a certain extent he lives up to that description with Jaguaren ved Verdens Ende (The Jaguar at the end of the World), which is an impressive attempt to describe a Whole World ‑ and all its inherent contradictions - through a great estate in an impenetrable Central American jungle. It offers moments of high poetry and a sharp insight into how we misuse each other. On the one hand the exploited Indian workers', on the other the landowning hierarchy, portrayed with a brilliant awareness of the more grotesque aspects of power. The Jaguar is probably Kåre Bluitgen's most fully accomplished book to date. Politics and poetry welded into a higher unity.

Back to the Present
In his two most recent books Bluitgen has turned away from foreign lands and taken to the Fantasy and the present time. The Fantasy ‑ with a capital F concentrates on an ambitious attempt to summarise. Which is what it is all about. Sabers udsendinge (2 volumes) (Saber's Envoy), is a Fantasy about making a journey in search of one’s history, one’s past, and coming home having violated various principles. The great question is: how much can be sacrificed for the sake of doing the right thing?
   The answer is blowing in the wind, but in Sabers udsendinge Kåre Bluitgen combines philosophy, history and pure piratical romance. It is a very long story, but its best moments offer some of the most significant and powerful currently being written for young people in Denmark.
   Bluitgen's latest book is Bødlens bud (The Executioner's Message), whose subject is the rootlessness of the young in an age without meaning. Set in Copenhagen, the characters spend more time in underground locales than at school. This story is typical of a time already past, but it may not last so well as Buitgen's books with foreign settings, of which for instance the story about South Africa will be readable long after the demise of apartheid like Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. Kåre Bluitgen shows his readers that the world still holds more than Coca-cola and aggravated nationalism.

This article was first published in Danish Literary Magazine no. 3.

Translated by Anne Born