Selected awards, Grants and Distinctions
Grants from the Danish Arts Foundation (including a Three-Year Working Grant, Working Grants and Travel Grants), 2020–2026.
Working Grant, Danish Association of Fiction Writers (Danske Skønlitterære Forfattere), funded by Tekst & Node, 2026Editor's Pick, BBC Radio 4 – Open Book (The Dolls), 2021
Selected among The Irish Times' Best Translated Fiction (The Dolls), 2022
Reumert Award – Digital Production of the Year (winner), 2021
Nominated for the Edvard P. Prize, 2021
Books from Denmark 2020 – selected by the Danish Arts Foundation as one of ten outstanding works of Danish literary fiction
Recipient of the Bodil and Jørgen Munch-Petersen Cultural Award, Denmark's largest debut literary prize, 2016
Nominated for the Montana Literature Prize, 2016
Nominated for the Edvard P. Prize, 2016
2021
Here is a writer of extremely unusual imaginative powers. I found myself completely entranced. This is one of the most extraordinary pieces of writing I’ve ever read
– Editor’s Pick, BBC Radio 4
2016
Awarded Denmark's largest debut prize, the Bodil and Jørgen Munch-Christensen Debutant Prize, for my debut collection Feather (Fjer), alongside Jonas Eika. The prize is awarded annually to two young Danish writers in recognition of an outstanding literary debut
Nominated for the Edvard P. Prize, 2016!
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TI YNGRE TALENTER INDSTILLET TIL BIBLIOTEKERNES FORFATTERPRIS
Books from Denmark 2020 - Danish Arts Foundation - 10 selected works of literary fiction of a special quality
THE DOLLS
Similar to her debut Fjer (Feathers) published in 2015, Ursula Scavenius‘ Dolls is a collection of enthralling and rebellious stories that observe and depict modern society in an innovative manner. Her stories are inhabited by people plagued by feelings of powerlessness; in exile, traumatized, fleeing for their lives. A girl in a wheelchair feeds her sister in the cellar through a crack in the wall, whilst Neo-fascism rages outside. Three siblings transport their dead mother in a coffin through Europe. Not knowing what she is running from, a woman with amnesia flees for her life. A fire breaks out in a provincial town and a massacre begins, but no one intervenes. The figure of a doll operates on several levels in the book.
Scavenius‘ style has been labelled ’un-Danish‘, ’rebellious’, ’mature’, ’beautiful’ and ’eastern European’ in its refusal to explain itself; instead, her writing delivers an atmosphere with razorsharp attention to detail. Her stories are driven by a personal quest to understand. Best of all, just as you feel beguiled by magic, realism creeps in.
2015
Nominated for the Montana Literature Prize for my debut collection Feather (Fjer, Basilisk, 2015).
In its coverage of the nomination, Information described the collection as a series of “strong fictions”, praising its hard, unsentimental prose, its fusion of visions, dreams and sensory impressions, and its distinctive, unsettling portrayal of a world in ecological and human collapse.
The review highlighted Scavenius's refusal of conventional narrative development, instead allowing recurring motifs, hallucinated imagery, tenderness and desire to form a literary landscape that was both beautiful and deeply disturbing.
Read the review in Information: www.information.dk/kultur/2015/11/nominerede-montanas-litteraturpris-2015
Winner of the 2019 GC Prize in Translation
Ursula Scavenius Transl. By Jennifer Russell
Read more:
http://gulfcoastmag.org/journal/32.2-summer/fall-2020/winner-of-the-2019-gc-prize-in-translation-birdland/
Grants and Literary Support
Individual Grants
2016 — Working Grant from the Author Fund (Autorkontoen), DKK 10,000.
2017 — Working Grant from the Danish Arts Foundation, DKK 100,000.
2018 — Working Grant from the Danish Arts Foundation, DKK 125,000.
2019 — Working Grant from the Danish Arts Foundation, DKK 100,000.
2020–2023 — Three-Year Working Grant from the Danish Arts Foundation, DKK 895,000.
2025 — Working Grant from Danske Skønlitterære Forfattere / Tekst & Node, DKK 30,000, for work on my poetry collection.
2025 — Travel Grant from the Danish Arts Foundation, DKK 5,000, earmarked for travel to Rome in connection with research and writing for a new novel.
2026 — Working Grant from the Danish Arts Foundation, DKK 75,000, supporting continued work on new writing.
2021–2022 — Script development grant for Birdland (Fugleland) from Feather, for the Sydhavn Teater production, DKK 40,000.
2017 — Publication Grant from Modernista Group, DKK 26,000.
