Peter Høeg

Peter Høeg (born May 17, 1957, Copenhagen, Denmark) is a Danish author best known for his award-winning novel Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne (1992; Smilla’s Sense of Snow, U.K. title Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow), a thriller that concerns the investigation into the death of a young boy.

In 1984 Høeg earned a master’s degree in literature from the University of Copenhagen. His first novel, Forestilling om det tyvende århundrede (1988; The History of Danish Dreams), established his reputation in Denmark. The work ranges over three and a half centuries and includes elements of magic realism, experimenting with the narrative voice and wreaking havoc with notions of time and materiality. Høeg followed his debut with Fortællinger om natten (1990; Tales of the Night), a book of complex short stories, all examining the same theme and all taking place on the same day.

Two years later he produced his international best seller Smilla’s Sense of Snow, which was translated into at least 17 languages and published in more than 30 countries. The suspenseful story details Smilla Jaspersen’s investigation into the death of her young neighbour. When the boy falls from the roof of their apartment building in Copenhagen, something about his footprints in the snow that lead to the edge of the roof causes Smilla to reject the official police finding of accidental death. Her investigation takes her to her native Greenland. The book was the first of Høeg’s works to be translated into English, and it was made into a 1997 feature film starring British actress Julia Ormond as Smilla.

Following the enormous success of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Høeg had moderate success with De måske egnede (1993; Borderliners), a story of social cruelty and of friendship among a group of outsiders at an elite private school, and Kvinden og aben (1996; The Woman and the Ape), in which the wife of an esteemed zoologist works to save an ape from death at the hands of the scientists studying him. After a decade during which he virtually disappeared, Høeg published Den stille pige (2006; The Quiet Girl), a complex thriller about a circus clown who uses his heightened sense of hearing to search for a young girl gone missing. The novel’s poor reviews compelled Høeg to retreat further from the literary spotlight. Despite the positive reception for his 2010 book, Elefantpassernes børn (The Elephant Keepers’ Children), Høeg chose to remain out of the public eye. His next book, the thriller Effekten af Susan (2014; The Susan Effect), centres on a woman who is extremely adept at uncovering secrets.

For Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Høeg won the Glass Key Award from the Crime Writers of Scandinavia in 1993. He also received the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger Award (runner-up to first prize) in 1994.