Louise Bokkenheuser

Biography

Louise Bokkenheuser is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times, among many other publications. The author of Hvad Der Ikke Slår Dig Ihjel (Gyldendal, 2010), a work of literary nonfiction about the Iraq war, Bokkenheuser is a Pulitzer finalist and a recipient of the Ebbe Munck Prize. 

See Work

ESSAYS / Fall 2025

My Mother’s Body

By Louise Bokkenheuser ,  Illustration by Amy Friend

A few years ago, I traveled to Skovsbostrand on the island of Funen in my native Denmark to write in a solitary residence by the sea. It was winter, too cold to sit in the garden among the priestly Eranthis and flocks of snowdrops, their...

Photograph by Amy Friend of a baby being cradled by its mother. Photograph overlaid with small bright flash effects like stars or light on water.