Dan Turèll

Dan Turèll (March 19, 1946 – October 15, 1993), affectionately nicknamed "Onkel Danny" (Uncle Danny), was a popular Danish writer with notable influence on Danish literature.

Dan Turèll grew up in Vangede, which at that time was a town outside Copenhagen surrounded by fields; today it is a part of Greater Copenhagen. He died from esophageal cancer and is buried at Assistens Cemetery. On Sunday March 19, 2006, on what would have been his 60th birthday, part of the town square of Halmtorvet in Copenhagen was named Onkel Dannys Plads (English: Uncle Danny's Square) in Dan Turèlls honor and remembrance.

Turèll was unruly, modern, and experimental when it came to both content and form. He might probably himself have claimed to let the form at all times be a consequence of an interaction between theme and subject, which inevitably would lead to a flood of crossing genres; delightfully difficult to fit into a box.

There is often a touch of autobiography, or perhaps rather self orchestration, to his works. He was very conscious of his own image. Many will remember him for his black nail polish. Thus his major breakthrough was the autobiographical novel, Vangede Billeder (English: Images of Vangede) from 1975. He shares subjects with the American Beat poets (mainly Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac & William S. Burroughs): jazz, metropolis, drugs, and zen. He has an eye for the aesthetic dimensions of decline and degeneration, which he cultivates not least in his series of crime novels. Other recurring topics include Copenhagen, Malta, the teachings of Donald Duck, icons of American culture and the Americanization, which the U.S.A., for better or worse, had on Denmark.

Turèll loved his city of Copenhagen, its life, its noise and perhaps especially the little stories, that lurked everywhere. This love for the city is portrayed in many of his stories. It must be said, however, that his portrayal of Vesterbro is considerably more romantic than the Vesterbro of real life.

Turèll published quite a bit of his material himself, especially early in his career. He wrote in both Danish and English and has been translated into Dutch, Estonian, French, German, Norwegian, Swedish and Serbian.

• Dan Turèll was a great fan of Donald Duck.
• At the 10th Danish Song Contest in 1978, he was a member of the jury choosing Denmark's official contribution to the 23rd Eurovision Song Contest the same year.
• His novels, Mord i mørket (English: Murder in the Dark) and Mord i Paradis (English: Murder in Paradise) both from 1981 were made into film in 1986 and 1988 respectively.
• In 2006 a musical theatre production, Onkel Danny, was made about his life.