Ane Riel is a Danish author. Her latest novel Harpiks won the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Suspense Novel of 2016.
Early life
Riel was born in 26 September 1971 in Aarhus. Her father is a lawyer and her mother, Mette Brahm Lauritsen, is a children's book author and illustrator. She graduated from Marselisborg Gymnasium in 1990 and began to study art history at Aarhus University the following year. Alongside her studies in Aarhus, she developed a keen interest in jazz and would often be found at the localjazz club, Jazzbar Bent J. In 1996 she moved to Copenhagen with an ambition to study illustration at the Danish Design School. Instead she ended up working at the Storm P. Museum dedicated to the life and work of Robert Storm Petersen, a Danish artist known for his comic strips and satirical work. Storm P. also provided the subject for Riel's third children's book. When Riel wasn't writing children's books, she was pursuing her love of music: going to as many concerts as possible, immersing herself in the Copenhagen jazz scene, joining the board of The Ben Webster Foundation and traveling with her husband Alex Riel, one of the most significant and influential jazz drummers in Europe.
Riel's first book was a school book about art published in 1995 in collaboration with a fellow student from the university. It was followed by other school books about art in architecture as well as a number of children's books with illustrations by her mother.
Novels
Riel made her debut as a novelist with the comedic thriller Slagteren i Liseleje in 2013, which was awarded the Danish Crime Academy's Prize for the Best Crime/Suspense Debut in 2014. It was followed by Harpiks in 2015, which was not only nominated for the "2016 DR Romanpris," the literary prize awarded by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, but also the Readers' Choice Award. That same year, Ane Riel was awarded the prestigious Niels Matthiasen Memorial Grant by the Ministry of Culture for her authorship thus far. The Niels Matthiasen committee called Ane Riel "an author of unique talent, extraordinary courage and a rare imagination. Along with her command of the subtleties of language, she has positioned herself at the forefront of her genre in record time. She is clearly not a 'one hit wonder'. With an imagination bordering on the grotesque and her exceptional writing style, she has forged a universe entirely of her own making.” Riel's novel Harpiks has been awarded Scandinavia's three most important crime novel awards – The Harald Mogensen in Denmark, The Golden Crowbar for Best Crime Novel in Translation presented by the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy, and Norway's Golden Bullet for Best Crime Novel translated into Norwegian. Riel has also been awarded the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Thriller for her novel Harpiks. On their motivation for choosing Harpiks, the jury said: “Resin is written with a mischievous and whimsical élan, as well as solidarity with its characters, especially the oddballs and the anti-socials. There is actually a lot of amusement in this tragic story. Resin is written in the fertile borderland between strict genre and originality, the beloved cliché and the new code. Or what Umberto Eco calls the good balance in all good literature; the known is what is already seen and the shocking is what is unknown. It is in this borderland that the best thrillers are and where prizes are won. Congratulations, Ane!”
Personal life
Ane Riel is married to the jazz drummer Alex Riel. The couple, along with their dog Gandhi, moved to Liseleje in North Zealand in 2006; A busy and idyllic holiday spot in the summer, but a deserted town in the winter months. It was life in Liseleje that inspired Riel's first novel for adults, Slagteren i Liseleje, which was awarded the Debut Prize by the Danish Crime Academy.
