Henrik Houtved was a well-known Danish journalist in the 80s and the 90s. After a solid career in Danish news media he moved in the new millennium over to work more with specialized trade press magazines. Eventually, this led him to establish himself as a Bangkok based foreign correspondent for a handful of trade press magazines in Denmark.
Within two years of his move to Bangkok, Henrik died in July 2008 of lung cancer.
Sixteen years later, in October 2024, Helen Vibe Lander has published a book about her brother and herself during their upbringing and during the last emotional years of his progressing disease.
Helen Vibe Landers book “A human for the last time” (For sidste gang et menneske) is about a very intense period of my own life in Thailand but from an entirely different angle. Helen Landers perspective is that of a devoted sister who protected him through his early years and was his intimate friend during their upbringing in various parts of Denmark.
I only met him when he was already an established journalist and a frequent business traveler to Asia. But we immediately became close friends. Later, when he wanted to build a news agency in Bangkok, we also became business partners. Henrik was the journalistic dynamo that made the agency profitable.
Reading Helen Vibe Landers book is like reading the diary that I never wrote myself during Henriks final year. Some details I remember vividly myself, some details are new to me. Most amusing is of course to read Helen’s description of me and how I handled the tragedy by staying focused on what had to be done from a practical point of view. Indeed so very me.
Helen Vibe Lander tells the story through flashbacks to episodes in her and Henrik’s upbringing mixed in with episodes from her visits to Henrik in Bangkok during the progressing illness. She fearlessly shares with the readers her anxiety of anything possibly related to death and her highly superstitious nature.
The writing style is like a script for a movie. The details of the observations in each short cut are like zooms and her intense and eloquent use of the Danish language is breathtaking. Cut. Next we are back in the past. Cut. At the bedside.
You don’t have to know anything about Henrik to be captivated by this book. It is a human drama unfolding on multiple levels and so well written by Helen Vibe Lander that this in itself is enough reason to keep reading.
For sidste gang et menneske is published by the Danish publishing company Ti Vilde Heste. It is available for sale as a paperback in book shops at 300 DKK or online at https://mikrofest.dk/shop/ti-vilde-heste/helen-vibe-lander/for-sidste-gang-et-menneske/
ISBN 9788794317344
Henrik was a very nice person, many fond memories of him when he was active in Thailand