Jonathan Cape pre-empts first two novels in Nordenhof’s Scandinavian Star septology

Jonathan Cape has pre-empted the first two novels in Asta Olivia Nordenhof’s award-winning Scandinavian Star septology.

Željka Marošević, editorial director, acquired world English language rights to Money to Burn (translated by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg) and The Devil Book (translated by Caroline Waight) from Kaisa Palo at the Ahlander Agency. Jonathan Cape will publish Money to Burn in July 2024, with The Devil Book to follow in January 2025.

Revolving around the "Scandinavian Star" disaster and tracing how capitalism infects ordinary lives, Money to Burn and The Devil Book are the first two instalments in a planned septology from the Danish author. Rights have been sold in 14 territories.

Nordenhof is an award-winning poet and author from Copenhagen, Denmark. Her novel Money to Burn was first published in 2020 and won the PO Enquist Prize and the European Union Prize for Literature. The Devil Book was published by Gads Forlag in August 2023. The publisher describes it as a work of autofiction about violence and money, love and desire that includes a romantic rendezvous with the devil himself.

In Money to Burn, Nordenhof tells the story of Maggie and Kurt’s marriage through different layers of love, betrayal, and poverty. At the novel’s midpoint, Nordenhof suddenly leaves the couple behind for an examination of what really happened in 1990 when the passenger ferry "Scandinavian Star" caught fire, killing 159 people. A national tragedy in both Norway and Denmark, it was later revealed to be an insurance scam gone wrong.

Nordenhof said: “I am grateful and very excited for this opportunity to reach English speaking readers, and I couldn’t be happier to be published among Jonathan Cape’s list of authors, many of whom I greatly admire.

Marošević said: “Reading Asta Olivia Nordenhof’s writing stopped me in my tracks. Her writing is intimate, but her canvas is vast. Her shape-shifting novels ask, how does money – our dependence on it and our desire for it – influence our lives, our decisions and the people we chose to love? To find out she takes us from a village in Denmark to a national disaster on the seas to a hotel room with the devil – and beyond. I can’t wait for English readers to discover her astonishing talents.”