International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award 2002

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The 2003 Award

The Royal Physician's Visit

(also published as The Visit of the Royal Physician)

by Per Olov Enquist

Translated from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally

Nominated by:

State Library of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Regional Library of Karvina, Karvina-Mizerov, Czech Republic
Copenhagen Central Library, Copenhagen, Denmark
Helsingin Kaupunginkirjasto, Helsinki, Finland
Mariehamns Stadsbibliotek, Mariehamn, Finland
Stadtbuchereien Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany
Stadtbibliothek Hannover, Hannover, Germany
Leipziger Stadtische Bibliotheken, Leipzig, Germany
Stadtbibliothek Mainz, Mainz, Germany
Public Library of Westman Islands, Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland
Solvberget KF - Stavanger Bibliotek og Kulturhus, Stavanger, Norway
Goteborg Stadsbibliotek, Gothenburg, Sweden
Stockholms Stadsbibliotek, Stockholm, Sweden
Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, USA

Publishers of Nominated Editions:

The Royal Physician's Visit by Per Olov Enquist

Overlook Press 1585671967

Harvill Press 1860469493

the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Set in Denmark in the 1760's, The Royal Physician's Visit magnificently recasts the dramatic era of Danish history when Johann Friedrich Struensee, a German doctor from Altona, student of the Enlightenment philosophers Diderot and Voltaire, and court physician to mad young King Christian, stepped through the aperture history had opened for him and became for two years the holder of absolute power in Denmark.
Dr. Struensee, tall, handsome and charismatic, introduced hundreds of reforms, many of which would become hallmarks of the French Revolution twenty years later, including freedom of the press and improvement of the treatment of the peasantry. He also took young Queen Caroline Mathilde- unsatisfied by her unstable, childlike husband - as his mistress. He was a brilliant intellectual and brash reformer, yet Struensee lacked the cunning and subtlety of a skilled politician and, most tragically, lacked the talent to choose the right enemies at court, a flaw which would lead to his torture and execution.
The Royal Physician's Visit, a view from the seat of absolute power, explores the connections that will always run between political theory and practice, power, sex, love and the life of the mind.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Per Olov Enquist is one of Sweden's most acclaimed writers, a novelist, playwright and poet with works published in 26 countries. The Royal Physician's Visit, his first novel since Captain Nemo's Library in the early '90s, won Sweden's most important literary award, the August Prize and France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger for 2000. It has been a best-seller in 20 countries.

Find out more about the author

An excerpt from The Royal Physician's Visit

A synopsis of the plot and brief review

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