Thomas Korsgaard’s novel ‘You probably should have been there’ gives the reader an unflinching insight into the life of a lonely, poor, abandoned teenager. 

Copenhagen can be a cold place. Especially for those living on the fringes of society – the downtrodden and the desperate. People like seventeen-year-old Tue, who has moved there to escape from an abusive father. 

Unexpectedly thrown out of his apartment and suddenly homeless, he wanders the streets with his very last possessions. Weighed down by an unbearable heaviness and barely hanging on by a thread. 

Follow Tue’s lonely road into adulthood. Visit the random places he frequents and the questionable characters he resides with. Witness first-hand the desperation of those living without a safety net. 

Tue finds himself caught between those who want to take advantage of him and those with saviour complexes. This push and pull allows the author to display the absurdness of many social norms. Tue has zero social skills. He doesn’t know how to ask for help. 

Tue is no saint. He can be petty and pitiful, difficult and disagreeable. He is extremely self-centred and pays little heed to the consequences that his decisions can have on others. But despite all this, you find yourself rooting for him all the way through.  

A contemporary novel from a non-romanticised Copenhagen. A tragicomedy told with a steady hand and razor-sharp prose. Korsgarrd demonstrates that the life lived by Tue isn’t as far away as you think. Through circumstances often out of a person’s control, anyone could end up in a similar situation. 

Thomas Korsgaard published his first novel in 2017 at just 21 years old. In 2021 he won the Danish literature prize ‘De Gyldne Laurbær’ for ‘You probably should have been there’ as its youngest ever laureate.