SOURCE: Irwin, Robert. “Northern Exposure.” Washington Post Book World 25, no. 40 (1 October 1995): 4.

In the following review, Irwin discusses the qualities of magical realism in The History of Danish Dreams, drawing comparisons to Latino-American novelists Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende.

The History of Danish Dreams is a novel in the international weird genre—or magical realism, as that sort of thing is better known. Høeg's first novel to have been published in English, in 1993, was Smilla's Sense of Snow. This was a splendidly unusual, if rather chilly, thriller, which richly deserved the best-seller status it achieved. Smilla, a touchy but tough spinster from Greenland, with a remarkable expertise concerning different types of snow, was its improbable yet wholly convincing protagonist. The following year saw the publication of the English version of Borderliners, a rather austere parable about the attempt of a trio of emotionally borderline children to escape...