Nikoline Werdelin (born 1960)
Bio
Nikoline Werdelin has been a well-known artist in Denmark, since her comic strip Café won a comics competition in the Danish daily newspaper Politiken in 1984. Café offered an accurate contemporary portrait of a new generation of self-absorbed urban dwellers. The strip stood out from the talking animals and philosophical children that were otherwise so predominant in the newspaper cartoons in the 1970s. The strip ran daily until 1988.
Homo Metropolis followed in 1994, also in Politiken, running most of the time during two decades and published in 5 collections. With stories that continue over several days and vary in content, Homo Metropolis shares the characteristics of graphic short stories. The strip’s main characters are preoccupied with gender, identity and separation, which they approach with an equal share of narcissism and self-destruction. On the face of it, not especially fun reading – but it is. One of the stories from Homo Metropolis was published in America in the anthology From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium.
From Wonderland with Love – Published by Aben Maler
Werdelin drew a color strip for the Danish women’s weekly Alt for Damerne from 1986 to 1998 and since 2010 the color strip Nina fra Rosengade has been appearing in the women’s weekly SØNDAG. Werdelin has also been a popular editor of an advice column in SØNDAG from 2004-2020. In addition, she has provided illustrations for a great number of books.
In 2020 she made her debut as novelist with “How to save a lemming” (Gyldendal).
Nikoline Werdelin has written and directed plays since 1997. Her work within this genre comprises numerous critically-acclaimed theatre plays, which have been staged throughout Denmark, in the Nordic countries and in several other European countries. The titles of these plays are Liebhaverne (1997), Den blinde maler (1999), Mine to søstre (2001), Boblerne i bækken (2002), Martas tema (2005), Akvariefuglen (2005), Natmandens datter (2006), Visen om Sidsel (2015) and Stellar Family (2017).
Werdelin is critically acclaimed and among awards and prizes for her color strips and her playwriting are: Danske Bladtegneres Cross Pris (1997), an illustrator/newspaper cartoonists’ prize; Publicistprisen, a prize awarded by the National Press Club of Denmark (1997); the Reumert Award for playwright of the year (2001 and 2002); and Modersmål-prisen, a native-language award (2007). Nikoline Werdelin has been given The Royal Danish Cross of the Order of Chivalry (2010) and the Holberg Medal.
Nikoline Werdelin lived in Berlin between 2006-2014 and is back to work from Copenhagen, Denmark.