Elizabeth Birkelund, though a native New Yorker, has always been a self-proclaimed Francophile. Her Danish heritage also attracted her to Greenland, where she created Ilse—a Greenland-born transplant to southeastern France and the star of her latest novel, A Northern Light in Provence. The book originates in Greenland, where the main character grew up but moves to the hilltop village of Belle Rivière, France, where she falls under the spell of the Provençal way of life.
First off, I’m sure our readers are wondering who Elizabeth Birkelund is. Did she have a day job? Was writing always her thing?
I’ve written three novels, and before that, I was a columnist for Cosmopolitan and I wrote for a lot of national magazines. I burned out from freelancing and then I started writing novels. But I think I was always a novelist. As a kid, I was always writing stories. It was more natural for me to be a novelist than it was for me to be a nonfiction writer, because I wanted to make things up.
I grew up on the Upper West Side, I’m a native New Yorker. I spent time raising kids in Connecticut, and now I’m back in my hometown. What’s interesting about the book is it’s about translation, and every day in New York is like an education in translation. If you’re walking in Central Park or wherever—anywhere in this wild, crazy city—you’ll find that you’re constantly translating.
How do self-discovery, love, romance, and travel play a major role in the novel?
At the start of the novel, the protagonist, Ilse Erlund, is restless; at 35 years old, she feels the need to change her life. She’s never been outside of her country. She convinces her editor to send her to Provence so that she can “triangulate” with the poet and his text to produce the best translation of his Provençal poetry. Traveling is Ilse’s road to self-discovery. Once she arrives in Provence, not only is she stunned by the warmth of the climate and the beauty of the village, but she is able to shed the persona that her family and small community formed about her and to discover her more authentic self. Ilse also learns about different kinds of love in her travels. Ilse knows about filial love. She had a very close bond with her brother. During her travels, she experiences a kind of intellectual love with the elderly poet, with whom she shares a love of language and poetry. And then, the poet’s dashing son arrives from Paris, and she learns about another kind of love!
Where Ilse, the main character, comes from [Greenland] is pretty topical, given the climate change affecting the area. Was that something you intended to do?
When I was exploring the possibilities, I had also thought of her coming from Norway. But when I started to explore Greenland, I did see just a visual and experiential climate change. It definitely did interest me more than anywhere else. It’s like a time capsule being there.
The sound was booming [when I visited] from the icebergs calving off the glaciers. It’s a major kind of experience Greenlanders are having more and more because of the warming climate. It’s just boom, boom, boom—like watching climate change in action.
I gather you consider yourself a Francophile. How did that come about? Did you live in France at all?
I have been a Francophile since the age of 8, when my family rented a house on the Côte d’Azur. I was enchanted immediately with the feeling of the warm sun, the colors of France, the smells! Having grown up in New York City, I felt all my senses had been dormant, and now they were on fire. I especially loved the taste of the French bread, and oh, the butter. My mother and her French friend would return from St. Tropez with their leather-and-rope chain belts, their purple suede hot pants, their large, floppy hats, and I was filled with amazement. We also visited topless beaches and open markets. It was an exotic world that I knew I wanted to hold on to for the rest of my life. Eh voilà!
Since that time, I lived with a French family in Paris during my junior year in college and attended the Sorbonne. After that, I returned to Paris often and then with my own family, staying in Brittany, the South of France, the Western coast on Île de Ré and Arcachon. Ten years ago, I discovered a hilltop village in Provence, where my novel takes place, and where I have returned every year since (except for 2020 during the pandemic).
Is Ilse in love with the poet or it just a deep intellectual connection and camaraderie?
Ilse discovered a deep abiding affection for the elderly poet, thanks to the respect that the poet showed her for her work, the first time any one in her life had ever acknowledged her gifts as a translator. She also admired the poet’s poetic imagination, his voice, his choice of words, as well as his commitment to continue the poetic, rhapsodic tradition of his troubadour ancestors.
Is there anything else you’d like to touch on?
New York City is a place of freedom. So many people come here from their hometowns, and so many people come here to establish their identity. I think that’s why my main character left her hometown to come to France, and there she found the ability to be herself without other people’s opinions about how she was.
“[Icebergs calving off the glaciers] is a major kind of experience Greenlanders are having more and more because of the warming climate. It’s just boom, boom, boom—like watching climate change in action.” — Author Elizabeth Birkelund