Erik Christian Haugaard photo

Erik Christian Haugaard

Erik Haugaard was born in Denmark and has traveled extensively in the United States, Italy, Spain, and Japan. Called "a writer gifted in the art of the storyteller" by the BOSTON GLOBE, he is internationally known for his accomplishments as a playwright, poet, and translator.

Haugaard has written a number of acclaimed works for young adults that transport readers back to a time and place in history that placed upon children burdens nearly unimaginable to the contemporary North American adolescent. Religious strife, World War II, and feudal Japan are just some of the settings Haugaard has explored in his books, which usually feature a child whose hardships are made all the worse due to the loss of parents or other guardians.


“Now he understood clearly that roads do divide, at the crossroad there is a choice, and blinding oneself to it is a form of choosing, too; it is the fool's way, the coward's way.”
Erik Christian Haugaard
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“Who understands war: the solders? the homeless ones? Mussolini? Or the leaders of the English and the Americans? No, nobody understands war, they only think they do. Maybe the earth that drinks up the blood understands it and says: "How foolish is man. Of all the animals that lives upon me, he is the cleverest and the most foolish.”
Erik Christian Haugaard
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“I had read history too closely, read of Caesar and the Roman Empire. I had not noticed that in the books there were white spaces between each line; the white spaces are there to remind you of the unspoken, unwritten truth. When one only reads the words and does not read what is not written in the book, then one will never learn to understand.”
Erik Christian Haugaard
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“I was not frightened as they were, for the very violence of his threats showed how weak he was.”
Erik Christian Haugaard
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“We were happy. I know I ought to be able to tell you about it, yet I cannot, for while a nightmare will stay with you like hunger, when you awake from a happy dream, you have no memory of it.”
Erik Christian Haugaard
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“What I have told you is not completely true. You should beware, for often in this story, my words will be spoken out of bitterness, out of hate. The scream of the poor is not always just; but if you do not listen to it, then you will never understand justice.”
Erik Christian Haugaard
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“The fairy tale belongs to the poor...I know of no fairy tale which upholds the tyrant, or takes the part of the strong against the weak. A fascist fairy tale is an absurdity.”
Erik Christian Haugaard
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“The young need their sleep and their dreams; only we who are old dream best when we are awake. ”
Erik Christian Haugaard
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