Delicately attuned to the complexities of both the natural world and human psychology, this potent classic of twentieth-century Danish literature is narrated by an isolated schoolteacher stuck in a mire of loneliness, deception, and spiritual despair.

When the first chapter of Martin A. Hansen’s The Liar was broadcast by Danish state radio in the spring of 1950, Denmark’s towns and villages fell silent. Combining terse, Nordic Saga–like prose with an unreliable narrator, The Liar is one of the greatest works of modern Scandinavian fiction, and in Paul Larkin's translation Hansen's masterpiece now finds its true voice in English.

The Liar tells the story of Johannes Lye, a teacher and parish clerk on tiny Snipe Island, off the coast of Denmark, a place that in winter ice entirely cuts off from the world at large. It is winter when the book begins, and for years now Lye has lived alone, even as he nurses a secret passion for Annemari, a former pupil. 

Annemari, however, is engaged to be married to a local man, Olaf—away now, but expected to return in the spring—while she is also being courted by a young engineer who has come to work on the island. Such are the main players in the book's compact drama, which we observe through the lens of Johannes's at once ironic and self-lacerating diary. 

Hansen's novel beautifully evokes the stark landscape of Snipe Island and the immemorial circuit of the seasons as well as the mysterious passage of time in the human heart while proceeding to a supremely suspenseful conclusion.

Martin Hansen (1909–1955) was a Danish writer of essays, novels, and short stories known for his participation in the Danish resistance movement during World War II. Born to a tenant farmer, Hansen grew up working as a farmhand and went on to train as a teacher. During the German occupation of Denmark, he began writing and eventually editing articles in the underground publication People and Freedom. Hansen was awarded several prizes during his lifetime, including the Drachmannlegatet, De Gyldne Laurbær, and the Holdberg Medal.

Paul Larkin worked for five years in the Danish Merchant Navy before taking a degree in Scandinavian and Celtic Studies. He later trained as a film director with the BBC. He had a long career in journalism and filmmaking before returning to Scandinavian languages and fiction as a translator, critic, and author.

Morten Høi Jensen is a writer and critic from Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the author of A Difficult Death: The Life and Work of Jens Peter Jacobsen. His writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Point, The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Commonweal, and The American Interest.