Gyldendal Agency Foreign Rights Guide Autumn/Winter 2022
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Visitor address Sehesteds gate 4 0130 Oslo, Norway
Anne Cathrine Eng anne.cathrine.eng@gyldendal.noForeignRightsDirector
Nina Pedersen nina.pedersen@gyldendal.noLiteraryAgent
Kirsti Kristoffersen kirsti.kristoffersen@gyldendal.noFilm&TVRights//
Postal address P.o. box 6860, St. Olavs plass 0130 Oslo, https://agency.gyldendal.noNorway
3 FICTION NOVELS // CRIME THRILLER // ESSAY
FICTION NOVELS
A man is visiting his father, who is moving to Pakistan. His father doesn’t want to grow old in Norway and his small apart ment needs to be emptied.
They Call Me The Wolf is a wise and moving examination of culture, history, family, identity and masculinity.
Zeshan Shakar (b. 1982 in Oslo) grew up in Stovner. He is a qualified political scientist and has also studied economics at the Norwegian Business School (BI). Shakar has worked in various ministries and directorates, and now works at Oslo City Hall. For his first novel, Tante Ulrikkes vei (2017), he was awarded the Tarjei Vesaa’s debutant prize. The book sold over 150,000 copies. In 2020, his second novel, Gul bok, came out. In 2020, Shakar received the Oslo City Artist Prize and the Neshorn Prize.
They Call Me The Wolf Zeshan Shakar
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Publisher: 240PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pages
It’s a novel about being a man from two countries, about having a mother from Finnmark and a father from Pakistan. It’s about being a parent, about the housing market, and about childhood. And it’s about survival and being hungry like a wolf.
The chore awakens memories from the man’s own childhood and youth, thoughts about his relationship with his own chil dren, and reflections on his parents’ story – a story that began long before he was born. What are they really leaving behind?
Zeshan Shakar
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«Trude Marstein is a master at creating fiction characters who are mildly unpleasant. The title of her new novel, One’s Own Children, immediately sparks expectations about the conspir atorial cliché ‘my children/other people’s children’. Marstein’s ability to capture modern lifestyle problems – in this case step children and stepparents – is highly relatable.»
One’s Own Children
One’s Own Children is about ambitions and disappoint ments, pretensions and revelations. About our search for belonging and meaning, for intoxication and transgression. About children and the power one has – and doesn’t have –over them; about responsibility and a longing for freedom. And about the joy and love that arrives in flashes, almost at random.
GyldendalForeign336PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pagesSales:Denmark
Anja and her boyfriend Pål are on their way to the smallholding in Sweden that Anja still co-owns with her ex-husband Ivar. It’s going to be a weekend of hard work – the cladding needs to be cleaned and painted. Ivar and his part ner Solveig are there too, as are all the children.
Publisher:
Trude Marstein
Trude Marstein
«Superb, relentless family drama. [...] The reader is left on tenterhooks as Trude Marstein gathers the modern family for a weekend of work at their smallholding.»
It’sessays.Juneand
NRK
One’s Own Children is about ambitions and disappointments, pretensions and revelations.
Trude Marstein (b. 1973) was awarded the Critics’ Prize as well as the PO Enquist Prize for Doing Good (2006), which confirmed her prominent position among younger Norwegian authors. Born in 1973 she grew up in small town Tønsberg on the coast of the Oslofjord. She received the Tarjei Vesaas’ Debutant Prize for Strong Hunger, Sudden Nausea (1998) and has written several novels as well as a book for children and a number of
Dagbladet
FICTION NOVELS
Trying and Failing is a novel about an almost completely normal couple. Like all parents of young children, Magne and Hannah have their challenges, but with Magne in a wheelchair even a trip to the beach at Huk turns into a gruelling odyssey. In spite of his master’s degree in literary science, Magne has a poorly paid job as a hotel receptionist. But with his visible dis ability, he is at least a welcome expression of the hotel chain’s benevolence and its diversity policy.
Publisher: IzdavačkaForeign368PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pagessales:kućaŠTRIK,
Magne and Hannah had intended to show the world – show the world that they could make it, show the world that it was Butpossible.alot can go wrong, and there are many ways to mess it all up.
‘Are you trying to ruin your life?’ Hannah’s friends say when she tells them she’s having children with Magne.
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«... the final pages convey a universal wisdom that is so profound and appears to be so hard-earned that it’s worth the entire book.»
Trying and Failing
Jan Grue was born in 1981 in Oslo. He holds a PhD in Linguistics and is Professor of Qualitative Research at the University of Oslo. Jan Grue is the author of a wide-rang ing body of work in fiction, non- fiction, and children’s literature. He has received glowing reviews both nationally and internationally for his work, and has won several literary prizes. Winner of P.O Enquist Prize (2021), winner of the Literay Critic’s Prize (2018), Nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize (2019.)
Jan Grue
Jan Grue
FICTION NOVELS
Dagbladet Serbia
«Formidable literary art. [...] Trying and Failing is a glittering crown on professor and author Jan Grue’s three works about disability, feelings of alienation and related challenges. [...] The book is alternately solemn and humorous, and thoroughly well written – and particularly well composed. Grue neither tries nor fails. He reigns.»
Vårt Land
Ingvild H. Rishøi
“I didn’t name you Ronja so that you could grow up in Tøyen,” Ronja’s dad tells her.
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But Tøyen is where they live – Ronja, her dad, and big sister Melissa. Christmas is coming. Dad has lost yet another job, which is why Melissa has no choice but to go out and heave Christmas trees around, Ronja has to sell seasonal garlands and sheafs, her father needs to go out to the Stargate pub, and December is all about wet mittens, commissions, and beer. But also about three wise men, a star, and a forest. Stargate is a Christmas story for our time: magical realism in a Christmas tree outlet in Tøyen.
“Rishøi’s heartfelt depictions of living conditions in modern Norway are reminiscent of the most classic of Christmas tales.”
Ingvild H. Rishøi (b. 1978) made her literary debut in 2007 with Do Not Erase, a short story col lection which received brilliant reviews. Rishøi’s oeuvre is distinguished and utterly unique. Her eye for the people she writes about, as well as her attentiveness to language and emotions, make her one of Norway’s most brilliant writers.
Publisher: Slovakia,Netherland,France,Spain,Russia,Germany,Denmark,Sweden,FOREIGN150PublicationGyldendalyear:2021pagesSALES:BokförlagetFloBatzer&coduMontASTGalaxiaGutenbergMercuredeFranceKoppernikTatran
“Stargate is a new adventure for a new time, an outstanding version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl.”
FICTION NOVELS
Stargate
Jyllands-Posten
“Ingvild H. Rishøi is the new Astrid Lindgren … A world of magic, imagination and pain all at the same time.” Uppsala Nya Tidning
Adresseavisa
The Unified Language Prize (2011), The Ministry of Culture’s literary prizes for Children and Young Adults (2011), The Hunger Prize (2012), The P. O. Enquists Prize (2013), The Critics’ Prize for Best Adult Fiction (2014), The Brage Prize for Best Short Fiction (2014) , The Bookblogger Prize (2014) , Bjørk Vik Prize (2015) , The Winner of Kulturhuset Stadsteaterns Internationella litteraturpris (2019) , Neshorn Prize (2021) , Amalie Skram Prize (2022.)
Ingvild H. Rishøi
Through twenty-plus different life stories from the present day and recent past, Habeas Corpus tells the stories of men and women trying to live as straight and true as they can according to the laws and rules of the societies in which they live. Their lives are intertwined, entangled in Big History and in forces that are greater than themselves. We are taken through Nor way, Europe and North and South America.
Habeas Corpus is a profoundly humorous and frank novel about people who stand up and fight, who make the best of what they’ve got, who often suffer defeat and who some times win in their struggle to live worthy lives.
«[…] The whole thing is fascinating, rich in perspective, and yes, often magnificently accomplished.»
How do you live respectably in a world where individualism reigns, where solidarity and collective responsibility have fallen into disrepute and money and power are the only measure of success and happiness?
Publisher: 320PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pages FICTION NOVELS
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«Whether you buy Fløgstad’s analysis or not, the novel will defi nitely get you thinking. But that thinking doesn’t come for free. […] After finishing this original and densely woven novel, I feel a little smarter, as if my mind’s software has been upgraded.» NRK
Stavanger Aftenblad
Habeas Corpus Kjartan Fløgstad
Kjartan Fløgstad (b. 1944) is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential Norwegian writers today. Since the literary début in 1968, he has written eighteen novels, several collections of poetry, essays, mysteries, short stories, travelogues, plays and non-fiction. In 1977 he was awarded The Nordic Council’s Prize for Dalen Portland, his definite international break-through.
Kjartan Fløgstad
the significance of place for writing. About cities. About years spent writing in Copenhagen.
Lust (An Author’s Autobiography) Tomas Espedal
‘We are born in the winter and die in the summer, such is my family’s calendar.’
Publication year: 2022 384 pages
Tomas Espedal
FICTION MEMOIR
Tomas Espedal (b. 1961) debuted as a writer in 1988. He is educated at the University of Bergen and has published both novels and collections of short prose. Tomas Espedal often experiments with transcending genres. In his later publications, Espedal writes closely on his own life and experiences while exploring the relationship between the novel and genres such as essay, letter, diary, autobiography and travelogue.
About writing by hand. About other writers.
Winner of the Brage Prize (2011), winner of the Critics’ Prize (2009), nominated for The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (2013), three times nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize. Published in 24 countries.
About money and finances, good and bad. About making writing one’s work, one’s profession, one’s way of making a Howliving.does
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romantic relationships. About friend Aboutship.
About finding the ideal place, the ideal hours to write. About writing at night.
one become a writer? Is it possible to make writing a profession? Can you make a living from it? And how would a life like that be?
Lust is a novel about reading and writing. About memory and Aboutamnesia.traveland
son
It doesn’t always go as planned, first and foremost because Life constantly gets in the way. Life, and the pursuit of love, and a man Vetle can call his own?
Erik Eikehaug (b. 1982) grew up in Kragerø on the southern coast of Norway. He has a bachelor’s degree in Nordic Literature from Oslo University, a master’s in Creative Writing and Publishing from Kingston University in London, and is also a graduate in creative writing from the Norwegian Institute for Children’s Books. His debut novel James Franco spits when he talks (2017), received excellent reviews.
enormously successful
Publisher: 384PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pages FICTION NOVELS
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«Erik Eikehaug succeeds with a romantic comedy.» Aftenposten
Adresseavisen
The Treasure and the Thief is the story of Vetle, of the Bear’s Den and the gay block, of a breakthrough and one hell of a comeback– as well as the question: What do you prefer? Fucking or laughing? Answer quick.
«’A well-written, painful and at the same time very funny nov el. […] But Eikehaug isn’t only funny, he also writes credible characters who have their strengths and weaknesses, people who have an air of a life lived, not mere stereotypes. And at times he also challenges our notions of what gay people are like. The Treasure and the Thief is a good novel that should reach a wide audience: it’s funny, it’s important, and it’s a book that deserves to be read by many.»
«A tremendously good novel about love and family relations ...» Dagens Næringsliv
The Treasure and the Thief Erik Eikehaug
Erik Eikehaug
Vetle is the of an author and, like his brother Fartein, is trying to follow in his father’s footsteps.
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«Vatne’s language is an effective performance enhancer for Nor wegian literature [... There is] something utterly stimulating about Vatne’s verbal flamboyance, which for me is worth more than a hundred sensitive contemporary authors’ experiments in inventing a new literary language. It’s entirely possible that yours truly’s ‘male menopause’ is shaping up to be more like a second phase of puber ty, but it’s rare for me to laugh as hard as I did here.»
Private Parts
Private Parts is a novel about municipal reforms and tumbling testosterone levels – and about discovering, midway through life, that who you have become is not the person you want to be.
FICTION NOVELS
Klassekampen
Arnstein is an essentially anonymous man from Lørenskog who has spent half his life in a village on the west coast that has reluctantly been swallowed up by Ålesund. Both the village and Arnstein are past their best, and now his wife Lindis is threatening to leave them both. Arnstein urgently needs to reinvent himself. And if a dildo store is going to be his saviour, so be it.
No one in Vågheim had expected Arnstein Lunde to become a major importer of sex toys – least of all Arn stein himself. But one day he accidentally receives a huge shipment of dildos for his webshop fishandelectro.no. For Arnstein, it’s worth giving it a go. He markets the acciden tal shipment as the ‘Fun Corner’ and they sell like nothing he has ever seen before.
Bjørn Vatne
Publisher: 368PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pages
Bjørn Vatne
Bjørn Vatne (born 1976) comes from Ålesund. He debuted in 2015 with his novel This is How we Choose our Victims, which was selected as Book of the Year by Norwegian book bloggers. His second novel, The Deletion of Paul Abel, was published in 2018 to unanimous acclaim from the critics. Among other things, Vatne read sociology and media studies at the University of Bergen and spent two years doing a writing course at the University of Tromsø. He has published texts in Vinduet literary magazine and in Granta, worked for several years as a journalist, and is currently a freelancer writing on culture in Ålesund.
Many Happy Returns
192PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pages
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Maria Horvei
Maria Horvei (born 1988) is a writer, critic and publishing editor. From 2018 to 2021 she was editor of the magazine Vinduet.
Many Happy Returns is her first novel.
Publisher:
Many Happy Returns is a story about national pride and the lack thereof, and about the urge to belong – somewhere or other.
FICTION NOVELS
Light dawns in the village on Norway’s national day. Flags are hoisted, shirts ironed. The lilac trees are on the brink of blossoming and the sky is turning as blue as a
Many Happy Returns is a story about national pride and the lack thereof, and about the urge to belong – some where or other.
Peoplebudgerigar.stream
out of their houses, each and every one of them in the mood to celebrate. One has returned to the home village to hold a speech, one has steeled themselves for the duties that accompany their position as chair of the 17 May committee. Another is preparing to travel far away, and yet another is trying to rediscover a place to which he has never really belonged.
Maria Horvei
Bjørn Andreas Bull-Hansen (1972) debuted with his short story collection Seven Stories From the Western Forest in 1996. Since then, he has written a number of books across a variety of genres. He had his international breakthrough with his novel Jomsviking (2017), which is the first in a sweeping historical series from the Viking ThroughoutAge. his authorship, Bull Hansen has become known for his gripping stories and powerful tales of human destiny.
13 Publisher: 496PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pages
the fifth book in the Jomsviking series about Tor stein and his family. Here, we are taken into the conflicts surrounding Olaf Haraldsson, later known as Saint Olaf, and are given an insight into a age when Norway went from being a society with a council of chieftains and local autonomy to a monarchy with centralised power. Through Torstein’s eyes, we see the old days and everything he knows to be good and right coming under threat. At the same time, Torstein himself will threaten Olaf right at the heart of his power – because Torstein wants to retake Vingulmork, the region he was promised dominion over before it was robbed from him.
Fall of the Kings
Fifth book in the Jomsviking series.
Bjørn Andreas Bull-Hansen
Thisworld.is
FICTION NOVELS
Torstein Herse is back from his campaign in England and has settled in Jomsborg with Sigrid. But there is discord in the air. One day a messenger arrives from Erling Skjalgs son, the man known as the King of Ryge. Olaf Haraldsson, the youngblood who served under the mighty Torkjell Høye in England, is threatening the old chieftains and petty kings and demanding Norway for his realm. The King of Ryge asks for the support of the Jomsvikings in the fight against the new pretender to the throne. But young Olaf’s audacity knows no bounds. Soon Jomsborg itself will come under attack, and a new warrior will ascend to the chieftain’s throne. Torstein will sail north, now accom panied by his eldest son, and witness great, proud men bowing to Olav Griske’s might. A rebellion will spring forth where Torstein least expects it – a rebellion that will lay open Olaf’s cruelty and lust for power to the whole
Bjørn Andreas Bull-Hansen
Publisher: 336PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pages
FICTION NOVELS
Ørjan N. Karlsson
Ørjan N. Karlsson
Almost Home is a North Norwegian noir featuring the midnight sun and dark secrets in the depths of winter.
Almost Home
However, events take on a whole new meaning when another woman disappears under similar circumstances, this time on Røst, the island furthest out into the wild ocean. Rumours that an unknown killer is on the loose begin to spread, terrifying the local population. Then Jakob discovers that this isn’t the first time young women have vanished without a trace in this region.
From the land of darkness and the midnight sun.
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Ørjan N. Karlsson (b. 1970) grew up in Bodø. A sociologist by trade, he received officer training in the army and has taken part in overseas missions. He has worked in the Defence Ministry and is now a departmental manager in the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection. He has written a large number of thrillers, sci-fi novels and crime novels for adults. Visit the author’s homepage at www.orjankarlsson.com.
Nineteen-year-old Iselin Hanssen disappears during a run in Bodø’s popular hiking area, and suspicion quickly falls on her boyfriend. For investigator Jakob Weber, the case seems clear-cut, almost unexceptional, even though there are tiny, barely visible hints that Iselin lived parts of her life beneath the radar for both family and friends.
Almost Home is the first book in a crime series from Northern Norway.
«An elegant and original horror novel about madness, artificial intelligence and the tragicomic history of psychiatry.»
In parallel, another story plays out that seems to be gravitating towards the same void. It begins with a strange phenomenon one autumn evening in Bodø in 1902: Darkness falls, but it doesn’t get dark. A stonemason fills his pockets with stone and wades out into Vågøy lake. A psychiatrist begins using Jung’s methods and is forced to leave his job at the asylum and move to Bergen. Two generations later, his grandson has isolated himself in the cellar of the psychiatrist’s villa and is making preparations to face up to the consequences of an innovative ideological belief.
A six-year-old girl’s behaviour gradually begins to changes. She grows quiet, reserved, and shies away from other children. One day she starts talking to an imaginary playmate. She calls him Tom.
Runar Dahle (b. 1981) grew up in Austrheim. He has a master’s degree in English and now works as a freelancer. He currently lives in Bergen. In 2010, he debuted with the short story collection Right, There You Are.
Tom Beyond the Other
Publisher: 270PublicationGyldendalyear:2022pages
Her parents are told that the imaginary friend is a positive sign, but they remain worried. Their daughter speaks of a stern pretend-friend who acts in aggressive and frightening ways. Soon he also begins to tell her what to do, and the small family’s life really begins to fall apart. They are being dragged towards a world devoid of all but fear.
Dagbladet
Runar K. Dahle
Runar K. Dahle
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FICTION NOVELS
Publisher: Gyldendal
The story of the friendship between two young girls.
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Tarjei Vesaas was born on a farm in Vinje in 1897. He was the oldest of three sons, and as the oldest he was entitled to inherit the farm. But Vesaas understood early that he was set out to become a writer. Vesaas started writing poems and articles for newspapers at the age of 23. The year after, he won a price for one of his poems, which led him to send some of his work to a publisher. For his collection of short stories, The winds (Vindane, 1950), he won the Venice Prize in 1953, which resulted in his international break-through. In 1964 he was the first Norwegian to receive the Nordic Council’s Prize.
FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS
This is a novel about awakening emotions, about being alone and feeling like a stranger in the world, about being a child and standing on the threshold of an adult consciousness, and about the dark borderland of the mind where numerous forc es, dreams ands desires struggle for power.
Tarjei Vesaas
The Ice Palace (1963) won the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1964, and represents Tarjei Vesaas at the peak of his creative powers.
His novels have been translated into 28 Languages.
144 pages
The Ice Palace
Unn walks too far into the frozen waterfall, and throughout one long winter, Siss fights the frost of her own mind. The girls feel early on that there are ties between them that they can’t explain. They are two of one, and one in two.
Tarjei Vesaas was a modernist who maintained a degree of technical experimentation throughout his work. He is regarded as one of Scandinavia’s foremost twentiethcentury writers and was the first Norwegian to win the Nordic Council’s Prize.
Tarjei Vesaas
FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS
Nature reveals secrets to Mattis. He can decipher the lan guage of birds. He can read the letters that the woodcock writers to him with its beak and feet. And he can articu late the deepest questions of life: Why are things the way they are? he asks the friendly farmer’s wife who offers him coffee when he has again failed in doing the work he has been asked to do.
In 1967 The Birds was made into a film by the Polish director Witold Leszczynski.
No-one can offer any answers, but the author tells the story in such a way that the reader comes to share his empathy for Mattis, while still understanding Mattis’s sis ter Hege and all those who want to help Mattis, but who can’t reach all the way in to him.
Tarjei Vesaas
The Birds (1957) might be Tarjei Vesaas’ masterpiece. No other character has portrayed with as much care and empathy as Mattis. Helpless in everyday life and useless as a worker, Mattis in some ways still understans more than the sharper ones.
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The Birds
An everlasting existential study of solitude, proving that a fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years.
Publisher: Gyldendal 208 pages
The Alberta Trilogy Cora Sandel
FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS
In Alberta Alone (1939), Alberta, now mistress to Sivert, is living in Paris with their small son. While Sivert is involved in a liaison with a Swedish painter, Alberta falls in love with Pierre, a writer just returned from the First World War. With subtlety and insight, Cora Sandel depicts the gradual corrosion of a relationship, against the background of the aftermath of the Great War.
In Alberta and Freedom (1931) Alberta escapes from her life in Norway to seek out Paris, a city where the bohemians will never die, where there is absinthe and endless talk of Cubism. But Paris is not all she imagined. Although she begins to write pieces for newspapers, Alberta’s self-esteem is low, and her inexperience makes her prey to the casual approaches of predatory men. Relationships, when they happen, are neither easy nor happy. Feeling her talent beginning to suffer and her freedom stagnating, Alberta faces a struggle to survive.
Publisher: Gyldendal
Cora Sandel, pseudonym for Sara Fabricius (1880-1974), is one of Norway’s greatest authors. In 1926 at an age of 46 she published her debut novel Alberta and Jacob, and it would take her thirteen years to finish the trilogy about Alberta with the novels Alberta and Freedom (1931) and Alberta Alone (1939).
18 Alberta and Jacob (1926), the first volume of the trilogy, introduces Alberta Selmer, one of the 20th century’s great anti-heroines: Imaginative and intelligent, trapped in a stiflingly provincial town in the north of Norway, she is a misfit whose only affinity is for her extrovert brother Jacob. Her mother makes no attempt to conceal her disappointment at her daughter’s social failings, and Alberta is desperate to get away. When Jacob escapes to a life at sea, Alberta’s rebellion, though muted and ineffectual, begins to grow.
“She writes in a low key, with exact domestic detail, unhurried, lucid and sure. The picture she builds up is unforgettable.”
782
“She has a place to herself among the finest contemporary writing.”
Daily Telegraph
Guardian
pages
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They both feel some sense of connection, and begin to open up to each other, speaking about their lives and the coincidences and anxiety that has led them awry. Cora Sandel sketches the small-town environment around Krane’s pastry shop with a masterful touch, and vividly and believably brings the characters to life with humour, precision and a deep understanding of human nature.
Krane’s Pastry Shop
At Krane’s pastry shop in a northern Nor wegian town, two people, the world-weary Katinka Stordal and the roustabout Bowler Hat, each lonely outcasts in their own ways, have a chance encounter.
Cora Sandel
Publisher: Gyldendal
Born Sara Fabricius in Christiania (now Oslo) and raised in Tromsø, Sandel left home to pursue a career as a painter, living in France and Italy (mainly Paris) for 15 years. Short on money, she started submitting travel letters and short stories to various Norwegian newspapers to scrape a living. One of these stories piqued the interest of the publishing director at Gyldendal, who encouraged her to write a novel. When Alberta and Jacob was published under a pseudonym in 1926, Sandel was 46, recently divorced, and living in Sweden with her young son. The novel was an immediate success, and sold surprisingly well for a debut, making it possible for Sandel to earn a living from her writing.
Cora Sandel (1880–1974) is highly regarded nationally and internationally as a unique voice in Norwegian literature. With the Alberta trilogy, published between 1926 and 1939, she cemented her position as one of our finest novelists.
Cora Sandel
FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS
FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS
Gyldendal celebrated the 150th anniversary of Knut Hamsun, the legendary and renowned author translated into more than 40 languages, by publishing a new and extended edition of Knut Hamsun’s Collected Works in 27 volumes. The editor responsible was Lars Frode Larsen (Ph.D., University of Oslo, author of The Young Knut Hamsun ), known as one of the foremost contemporary specialists on the author. He has, together with Professor Tore Guttu, carried out a careful modernizing text revision.
Knut Hamsun
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Knut Hamsun
A true classic of modern literature – and a forerunner of the psychologically driven fiction of Kafka, Camus and Sarramago – Hunger is the story of a Norwegian artist who wanders the streets of Christiania (now Oslo), struggling on the brink of starvation while trying to sell his articles to the local newspaper.
Hunger (1890)
«The most outstanding Norwegian writer since Ibsen.» TLS
Knut Hamsun, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920, is the most prominent literary figure in Norway since Ibsen. From his experimental novels of the 1890s to the broader narrative sweep of his later works from the interwar period, his contribution to the development of the modern European novel was uniquely important.
As hunger overtakes his body and his mind the writer slides inexorably into paranoia and despair. The descent into madness is recounted by the unnamed narrator in increasingly urgent and disjointed prose as he loses his grip on his body and on reality itself. At the end of the novel – for reasons that remain unclear – he suddenly decides to sign up as a crewman aboard a ship and leave the city behind. Arising from Hamsun’s belief that literature ought to be about the mysterious workings of the human mind – an attempt, as he wrote, to describe «the whisper of the blood and the pleading of the bone marrow» – Hunger is a landmark work that pointed the way towards a new kind of novel.
Publisher: Gyldendal 208 pages
Pan (1894)
Knut Hamsun
A man of fascinating complexity, Glahn is in some respects a modern successor to a long line of «super fluous» men in western literature, an heir to Goethe’s Werther and the protagonists of Turgenev and Dosto yevsky. But this portrait of a man rejecting the claims of bourgeois society for a Rousseauian embrace of Nature and Eros explores the veiled mysteries of the uncon scious by means of thoroughly modern techniques. Pan’s quasi-musical modulations of pace and rhythm, its haunt ing use of leitmotifs which contract and distend time, its startling versions of myth and legend, and its ecstatic evocations of nature in its various phases and moods, all attest to the novel’s Modernist innovations.
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FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS
Publisher: Gyldendal 208 pages
First published in 1894, Knut Hamsun’s Pan is former lieutenant Thomas Glahn’s retrospective narrative of his life and adventures in the Norwegian woods.
Growth of the Soil (1917)
The novel moves at the pace of the passing seasons and with the growth of the crops, on which the characters’ lives depend. Hamsun’s themes of individual freedom and the fundamental human need to reconcile man with the natural world, speak even more resonantly now than when the novel was first published.
Publisher: Gyldendal 368 pages
Knut Hamsun
Growth of the Soil is the story of Isak, a worker of the land, with roots in man’s deepest myths surrounding the struggle to cultivate land and make it fertile.
FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS
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The lovers are Johannes, the miller’s son, and Victoria, daughter of the lord of the manor. Their brief moment of ecstasy is as transitory as their dreams. Separated forev er by their stations in society, they live their lives apart, forced by circumstances into perverse acts of cruelty against one another. Only in the last tragic pages do we see that Victoria cannot live without her Johannes. De ceptively simple, this touching idyll reveals Hamsun as a man who seeks and finds loveliness in sorrow. His vision of love is «strewn with blossoms and blood, blood and blossoms.»
This beautiful and moving story of young love was hailed by the New York Times as «A sustained feat of shimmering lyricism».
FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS
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Publisher: Gyldendal 112 pages
Victoria (1898) Knut Hamsun
Kirsti Kristoffersen
Visitor address Sehesteds gate 4 0130 Oslo, Norway
kirsti.kristoffersen@gyldendal.noFilm&TVRights//
Postal address P.o. box 6860, St. Olavs plass 0130 Oslo, https://agency.gyldendal.noNorway
Nina Pedersen
Anne Cathrine Eng
anne.cathrine.eng@gyldendal.noForeignRightsDirector
nina.pedersen@gyldendal.noLiteraryAgent