Danish publisher Gyldendal is facing criticism for promoting Katrine Engberg’s new crime novel “Tandfeen” by pointing to a real rumor circulating on Reddit.
DR reported on September 10 that the launch of the novel has started a debate about the line between fiction and gossip. The book was released this month by Gyldendal and has received positive reviews. It has also drawn attention because its premise comes from an undocumented claim spread online.
In a promotional video on Gyldendal’s Instagram account, Engberg says the book is based on a rumor she heard. She says the idea came from a claim about a person who pulled teeth out of sex workers for fun. According to Gyldendal’s own website, the novel came out on September 1, 2026, and deals with violence, rumors, powerful men and the silence that protects them.
The reviewer at Information called the launch problematic and unnecessary, writing that the “semi-speculative” marketing indirectly spreads gossip. The rumor is attached to a well-known person in posts by anonymous users online, DR reports.
Gyldendal’s editor for fiction, Simon Pasternak, rejects the criticism. Speaking on DR’s P1 Orientering, he said nothing in the book itself refers to any real people. He described the rumor as completely improbable and said the publisher does not encourage anyone to do anything wrong.
Publisher says no one was contacted
Pasternak said Gyldendal has no interest in pointing readers toward real individuals. He said the marketing material mentions Reddit because the platform plays a large role in the plot, where rumors also spread. According to him, whether to search Reddit for a possible real person is a matter of individual common sense.
Asked whether anyone has been contacted, Pasternak said the publisher has not reached out to anybody, because a rumor has no truth value and the book is not about real people. He added that no one has contacted Gyldendal on their own initiative. He said the responsibility to reach out would apply to a documentary or journalistic book.
Engberg has also rejected the idea that the book legitimizes the rumor. She said so last Friday on the program “Det, vi taler om” on Radio IIII. There she would neither confirm nor deny whether she had contacted anyone connected to the nickname.
Sten Schaumburg-Müller, a professor of media law at the University of Southern Denmark, told DR there is no legal case here. He said drawing inspiration from a rumor circulating on Reddit is legally unproblematic. Problems arise only if real, identifiable people are described and accused of something, he said.
The professor said the question belongs to an ethical and professional discussion within the publishing industry instead. DR notes that in 2025, author Thomas Boberg and Gyldendal were acquitted in a defamation case brought by residents of Fejø over the novel “Insula”. Engberg’s book is on the bestseller lists of Saxo and Bog & Idé this week.
