Maria Helleberg - Kærlighedshistorier

2012, Danish, Lili Elbe, Maria Helleberg,

Original title: "Kærlighedshistorier" (Love stories) by Maria Helleberg.

"The book contains 11 love stories. The fourth love story "The Gender" from page 66 to page 88 deals with the couple Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe. Our perception of love is based on history. Over time, a large number of love couples have played a major role in forming the myth on which we today base our perception of love. The love stories serve as a kind of role models or templates for us today.

Maria Helleberg takes us on a fast-paced and entertaining trip back in time and along the way gives her personal interpretation of a number of love stories from Saxo's legends over the Golden Age and up to modern times. Along the way, we hear about Signe and Hagbard, Liden Kirsten and Buris, Elsebe Gyldenstjerne and Stygge Krumpen, Marie Grubbe and Søren Møller, Caroline Mathilde and Struensee, Juliane Marie Ottesen and Nicolai Abildgaard, Regine Olsen and Søren Kierkegaard, Countess Danner and Frederik the Seventh, Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre, Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe, Helle Virkner and Jens Otto Krag, Tove Ditlevsen and Victor Andreasen. We have all learned from the characters in this book. Love exists and blossoms – and may fade."

Lili Elbe, born Einar Wegener, was a Danish painter and transgender woman. She was one of the first individuals known to receive sex reassignment surgery. She was married to Gerda Wegener, also a painter, and her life was the subject of the novel and film The Danish Girl. She was a successful painter under her birth name Einar Wegener.

She died due to complications from a uterus transplant, which was an attempt to achieve pregnancy. Her semi-autobiographical narrative was published posthumously in 1933 under the title Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex. An opera based on her life, Lili Elbe, composed by Tobias Picker, premiered in 2023.

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