Metanoia

To read “Metanoia” is to enter into the fantastic, magic realistic universe of Lise Lyng Falkenberg where ghosts lurk, angels flock and men turn into scarecrows. Your guide through the ten stories of the collection is Little Johnny Sleepwalker, the narrator of the first story, “Little Johnny Sleepwalker and the Mojo Hounds from Hell”. He’ll grab you by the hand or leg or any other body part within reach and drag you through heaven and hell. And back, hopefully! It is entertaining, disturbing, scary and fun as there’s never a dull moment in the company of Lise Lyng Falkenberg and her henchman Johnny Boy. So you might as well just sit back and enjoy the ride, because as Johnny would put it: you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t!

Four of the short stories have been written directly for this collection whereas five have been published before in the author’s native language, Danish, among them the critically acclaimed “For Every Evil Under the Sun”. These stories have been translated by the author herself for this collection. A single story, “The Legend of the Scarecrow”, was published originally as part of chapter four of the author’s Danish novel “The Scarecrow” and the present excerpt has been edited and translated for this short story collection by the author herself.

Lise Lyng Falkenberg holds two Ph.D. degrees, one in Comparative Literature and one in Cultural studies as well as a BA in Semiotics. She is a noted author of about twenty novels, short story collections and biographies published in both Danish and English along with hundreds of poems, essays, articles and reviews.