Sunday, Apr. 13, 2003

Peter's Sense of Charity

By ULLA PLON | Copenhagen

Peter Hoeg enjoys huge success as a writer. But he's even more successful as a human being. The acclaimed, publicity-shy author of Smilla's Sense of Snow (published in Britain as Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow) shares his wealth with people in need. After the 1993 breakthrough of Smilla — TIME called it the best novel of the year — Hoeg decided to donate all the profits from a later novel, The Woman and the Ape, to women and children in the developing world.

Inspired by his travels in Africa and his Kenyan wife, the 46-year-old Hoeg in 1996 established the Lolwe Foundation, which supports grass-roots projects aimed at reducing poverty in Africa and Tibet. So far, the foundation has distributed some $850,000. Tanzanian women have received loans to establish small businesses; exiled Tibetan nuns in Nepal have been given a grant; and in the East African Masai country, cattle herders have received help to construct corn mills. "These mills are a major asset for the cattle herders, and are often operated by women. Without the support of the Lolwe Foundation, several of them would never have been built," says Uffe Larsen, of the Danish NGO Utamaduni project.

Hoeg gives no interviews and has never commented in public on his initiative. His silence may be of concern to his publisher, who has been waiting seven years for his next book. But Hoeg is unstirred by external pressure, living anonymously with his wife and children in a Copenhagen apartment. In a world where too many boast about too little, quiet charity shouts out loud.