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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew preparedness along with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates caused the deaths of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a passenger—a truck driver with a history of fire-setting. Since this suspect too perished in the fire and was not able to refute himself, the full facts regarding the event remained concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation revealed the fire was likely set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Series: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Driven to repeat the route in search of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces us to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the source of the character's disaffection may originate in a poor financial decision made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an extended prose poem in which the writer describes her challenge to compose T's story. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / ignited.” Burdened by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the tale obliquely, as a form of allegory. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks relates to him what happened to her a decade earlier, when she accepted an offer from a figure who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the threads of the two stories become more intertwined, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: an ardent, compelling dedication to literature as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative comes finally to light—the story of a girl whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to comply with social expectations or endure more of the same. “[The devil] understands that in the scenario you've created for it, there are two outcomes: submit or stay a monster.” A alternative path is finally revealed through a series of verses to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the influences of capital.

Connections and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous British readers of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star books will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, bears parallels in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over people. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze on board the ferry and the chain of fraudulent transactions that culminated in mass murder are a sinister background presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or inference yet projecting a growing influence over everything that transpires. Certain individuals may question how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its purpose and significance are so deeply tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

Some individuals—and I count myself as among them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as truly innovative writing whose ethical and creative purpose are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this series, no matter where it goes.