Hans Christian Andersen (Cuando era pequeño)

by Roser Capdevila

Translated by Erik Hougaard, this is the only version available in trade paperback that presents the fairy tales exactly as Andersen collected them in the original Danish edition in 1874. His notes accompany the text.

Genres: Biography, Fairy Tales, Nonfiction, Literature, History, Picture Books

32 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2003

About the author

Roser Capdevila i Valls nace en Barcelona el 23 de enero de 1939. Estudia en la Escuela Massana de Barcelona y durante diez años ejerce la docencia, hasta que la abandona para dedicarse a la vida familiar y comienza a realizar diseños para telas y estampados. En 1980 inicia su actividad como ilustradora de libros infantiles. Entre los personajes más conocidos ilustrados por ella están La bruja aburrida y Las tres mellizas. Esta última ha sido llevada a la televisión en capítulos, dibujados y supervisados por la autora.

Reviews

[Therese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and readable biography of Hans Christian Andersen - long though! Interestingly, the biographer includes a kind of literary vignette at the start of each chapter - a kind of imagined short story involving Hans Christian Andersen. I wasn't quite sure what to make of those, and I was honing in on specific aspects of HCA's biography, so I mostly skipped them. HCA is a fascinating figure - very confident and persistent from a young age in his vision of his own destiny as an author, and throughout his life a constant hard worker and prolific producer in his craft. He was famous throughout Europe, though more respected abroad than at home in his native Denmark; an extremely social being for a writer, but also socially strange and awkward, and it seems in later years ever more self-centered.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jens Andersen's biography of Hans Christian Andersen presents a detailed account of the writer's life, mostly in terms of HC Andersen's adult years. This book offers more of a look into HC Andersen's inner life, his inner person.

[Drianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great biography. Very dense. I didn't know before reading it that Andersen was gay; I definitely believed he was afterwards.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

informative and well organized- easy to use for academic papers

[Reni Grueva · Rating 2 out of 5]

the sad irony when the life of a great storyteller is retold as the most boring story

[Shaitanah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exhaustively informative and hard to put down. A complex portrait of a very complicated man.

[Art Wangchu · Rating 1 out of 5]

诘屈聱牙

[Niño Lobo KC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comenzó disgustándome y al final me gustó. Lo mejor, por su puesto, son los cuentos de Andersen. Inesperados, oscuros y tristes, algunos demasiado morales, como era normal para el Andersen de su tiempo. Lo peor fueron algunas anotaciones inútiles y puestas para rellenar. Al principio creí que todas serían absurdas, pero me di cuenta de que muchas eran interesantes. No había leído algo anotado y me gustó la sensación de diálogo que te aporta el punto de vista del analista. La calidad de la edición es insuficiente, sobre todo las imágenes que contiene no valen los 50 euros que pagué para nada. Me sentí estafada al sacar el libro de su plástico. Esperaba encontrar bellas reproducciones de los ilustradores, pero no las encontré. Una decepción completa, pues lo de las ilustraciones es uno de los puntos promocionales principales del libro. No compraría otro como estos a Akal.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book to be read slowly if only to absorb the wealth of material; nearly overwhelming in its careful detail, but fascinating. Conting the footnotes, over 600 pages. Definitely worth the trouble.
Andersen was a very strange man, a very complex man, and had done much more than write fairy tales.