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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating blaze erupted aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew preparedness combined with malfunctioning safety doors aided the spread of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials caused the loss of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of fire-setting. Given that this individual too perished in the fire and was unable to refute the accusations, the complete truth regarding the disaster stayed concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the blaze was probably started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Series: A Glimpse

In the initial book of Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she notices an elderly man on the street. As the bus moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She presents us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the root of the character's discontent may originate in a poor financial decision made on his account by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer describes her struggle to write T's story. “Within this second volume,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story obliquely, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who spends quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and during those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a ten years before, when she accepted an offer from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we start to believe that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the nature of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

There is another fire here: an ardent, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our peril. But what if the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional storyline comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose childhood was marred by abuse and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with social expectations or suffer further harm. “[The devil] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: submit or remain a beast.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a series of poems to the night that are also a call to arms against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Readings: From Fiction to Real Events

Many British readers of the author's Scandinavian Star books will think right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, shares similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of putting financial gain over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the blaze aboard the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that culminated in multiple deaths are a ominous background presence, revealing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or inference yet casting a growing shadow over everything that transpires. Certain readers may doubt how much it is feasible to read this volume as a independent work, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at this stage, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly innovative writing whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, attractive commitment to writing as a political act. I will continue to follow this series, no matter where it goes.