An unflinchingly raw and lyrical exploration of a mother's grief and how it transforms her relationship to time, reality, and language.
Longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Translation
In March 2015, Naja Marie Aidt's twenty-five-year-old son, Carl, died in a tragic accident. When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back chronicles the few first years after that devastating phone call. It is at once a sober account of life after losing a child and an exploration of the language of poetry, loss, and love.
Intensely moving, When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back explores what is it to be a family, what it is to love and lose, and what it is to treasure life in spite of death's indomitable resolve.