Gyldendal Agency Spring 2015
Gyldendal Agency Spring 2015 Anne Cathrine Eng Rights Director anne.cathrine.eng@gyldendal.no
Henrik Francke Foreign Rights Manager henrik.francke@gyldendal.no
gyldendal agency is an in-house literary agency
Contents
Fiction 4 Crime, novels, short stories, literary memoirs Non-fiction
Non-Fiction
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21 Biographies, history
The Mark of Shame is a thrilling, wellwritten and very entertaining suspense novel set in Oslo and Bern in the year 1905.
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Wolf Island is a fascinating, poetic account of a young woman who spends two winters alone in the wilderness, with wolves, grizzly bears, marihuana growers and trappers her closest neighbours.
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The Brage-prize winning The Ultimate Crime tells the shocking story of the Norwegian holocaust. 3
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The Mark of Shame H. K. Fauskanger A fast-paced, suspenseful and brilliantly witty historical thriller.
“Clever twists and a captivatingly entertaining read” klassekampen
“Impressive ... his originality, his passion and his energetic storytelling - few others come close to matching him here” Hamar Arbeiderblad
The year is 1905, Norway is in the process of seceding from Sweden, and secret negotiations are being conducted to avoid war. At the prime minister’s office in the Norwegian capital, Oskar Brattenschlag is the assistant of the prime minister’s secretary, Calmeyer. But war is not the only threat. An unknown man collapses in a pool of blood outside Brattenschlag’s door, telling Brattenschlag to inform Calmeyer that the handover was unsuccessful. He then draws a strange symbol in blood and expires. In his hand he holds what turns out to be a page of the handwritten Gothic bible Codex Argenteus. The symbol is what we now know as the swastika. Brattenschlag is immediately embroiled in a bloody mystery that includes vanished runic inscriptions, ariosophic circles, from which nazism would later evolve, and something or someone that does not flinch from taking life in order to achieve his sinister goals.
About the author H.K. Fauskanger (b. 1971) has studied philology and religion, and masters Greek, Classical Hebrew, Coptic and several Elvish languages. He made his debut with the critically acclaimed historical crime novel The Chest in 2012.
crime // ORIGINAL TITLE: SKAMTEGNET // 558 PAGES
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The Scarlet Room In the basement of the ancient manor farm Ugge there is a sealed room called the scarlet room. Legend has it that anyone who spends a night in the scarlet room will either die or lose their mind. In 1897 the rationalist Fredrik Lange decides to put this myth to the test by allowing himself to be locked in the room for a night. The journey proves to be fatal. “A real Fauskanger novel ... well written and different” VG
The Chest “If you want me for the trial, my address will be in Norway,” Sherlock Holmes enigmatically states in one of Doyle’s stories. But what did he actually do there? Fauskanger provides the answer in this furiously well-written crime novel, which is packed with axe murders, kabbala and vanished relics. “Fabulous reading. Warmly recommended” GUNNAR STAALESEN, AUTHOR OF THE VARG VEUM SERIES
crime // ORIGINAL TITLES: SKARLAGENSSALEN / SKRINET // 544 / 460 PAGES
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gyldendal agency Novels and short stories
Ordeal Jørn Lier Horst
“I’m deeply impressed. What a story, what a plot, what a rich tapestry ... this is [Horst’s] best book so far, it’s brave, wise, suspenseful. It has quite simply been a real joy to read this manuscript.” Trude Rønnestad, Horst’s editor at Gyldendal
The Hummel case has been bothering William Wisting for more than half a year. The investigation of what happened when the taxi driver Jens Hummel disappeared, has led nowhere, and he has had to endure severe criticism. A surprising find leads the suspicion towards Dan Roger “Danny” Brodin. The only problem is that Danny has an alibi: He is already in custody, charged with another murder. Wisting is used to building a solid case, but this time it’s different. Now he has to use all his know ledge and experience to pick apart a case that everybody else thinks is over and done with. He goes his own ways and follows his convictions - all the way into court. One million Wisting books sold in Norway and abroad Published in 16 languages
About the author Jørn Lier Horst (b. 1970) worked for several years as a policeman and head of investigations in Larvik. His first crime novel was published in 2004 and featured police investigator William Wisting. After good reviews and slowly increasing sales for the first books of the series, Horst had a massive breakthrough with Closed for Winter in 2011, which won the Booksellers’ Prize that year. Since then he has been the biggest-selling crime writer in Norway after Jo Nesbø. CRIME NOVEL // ORIGINAL TITLE: BLINDGANG // 350 PAGES Foreign sales // WORLD ENGLISH (SANDSTONE)
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gyldendal agency Novels and short stories
The Caveman Hulemannen, 2013 // 352 pages Foreign sales // Danish, English, German, Icelandic, Polish, Slovak, Swedish Reading material: Full English translation
Death pays a visit to Wisting’s neighbourhood. Shortlisted for the Booksellers’ Prize. “One of the most brilliantly understated crime novelists writing today” Sunday Times, UK
The Hunting Dogs Jakthundene, 2012 // 358 pages Foreign sales // Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, English, German, Icelandic, Japanese, Macedonian, Polish, Slovak, Swedish Reading material: Full English translation
Wisting is suspended, suspected of planting false evidence. Winner of the Riverton Prize, Glass Key Prize, Swedish Crime Writer’s Academy’s Prize. “Sensationally successful!” Dagbladet
Closed for Winter Vinterstengt, 2011 // 328 pages Foreign sales // Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Macedonian, Polish, Slovak, Swedish Reading material: Full English translation
A brutal murder in a holiday paradise. Dead sparrows fall from the sky. Winner of the Booksellers’ Prize. “A thrilling mixture of journalism and police work” vg
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The King’s Council Ørjan N. Karlsson A fast and furious story about the Cold War, concealments and brutal revenge 1954, in a condemned building in Oslo: A Norwegian official suspected of being a Soviet spy is tortured to death. Present day: Three Norwegian ambassadors die in suspicious circumstances. At the same time, a female Russian oligarch has managed to establish herself almost unnoticed in Oslo. Kyrre Kaupang has now become a central figure in the intelligence group The Foundation – a spirited and half-democratic leftover of the days of the Cold War. They have only just started to investigate the death of the first ambassador when they are told from the highest authority to discontinue their investigations. Why? The Foundation decides to quietly ignore the order not to proceed: Who is the Russian woman? And why are the deaths of the ambassadors such a delicate matter? Someone, however, suspects that Kyrre Kaupang and his colleagues are getting to know too much, and their resistance is forthright. From a source that in no way has forgotten the incident back in 1954.
About the author Ørjan Karlsson (b. 1970) is a sociologist, a former army officer and has worked with defense issues.
crime // Original TITLE: KONGENS RÅD // 335 PAGES
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The Judas Kiss Eirik Husby Sæther It is always possible to fall deeper Mikael Wulf is a policeman in the criminal investigation service, Oslo police’s front line in the fight against violent crime. He is called out in the event of sudden deaths, discovered bodies and rapes. One day he turns out on a case of drugs overdose in the Oslo central railway station, a death that could possibly prove to be a murder. The dead person has shared a flat with Mikael Wulf’s drug-addict foster brother William, who has disappeared. As has the third member of their gang. And a stolen consignment of heroin. Which someone wants to get back at any price. Mikael is afraid that his foster brother is in serious danger and starts single-handed to investigate the drugs environment around Oslo S. Clues take him off on a black odyssey, in the catacombs under the Central Station, in old, abandoned customs cells, and into the dark regions of his own mind. The Judas Kiss is dark, naturalistic crime fiction, which brings the reader painfully close to the precarious existence in the back streets of Oslo.
About the author Eirik Husby Sæther (b. 1984) was born and raised on the east of Oslo. He has studied criminology and graduated from the Police Academy in 2009. He works at the Oslo criminal investigation service. His first book was the crime novel The Lobotomist (2012).
crime // Original TITLE: JUDASKYSSET // 320 PAGES
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Wolf Island Lajla Rolstad A powerful, personal and poetic account of a young woman’s stay alone in the wilderness. ‘Do I have to live my life in this way?’ Lajla Rolstad asks, and books a plane ticket to Canada. She spends the following years here, alone in the wilderness or on the road, among people who live outside society in peripheral areas or whom she comes across on her travels: marihuana growers, trappers, cowboys, hippies, adventurers and medicine men. The first winter she is the caretaker at an isolated resort that is closed for the season. Her nearest neighbour lives half an hour walk away, through the forest. Gradually she learns to know her surroundings, the nature and animal life, as well as the other people on the island: a strange community of people who seemed to have washed ashore there, or just escaped from civilization and their old lives. She later lives alone for a whole winter in a log cabin in an Indian reservation, with grizzly bears, wolves and strange men as her neighbours. An unprotected life.
About the author Lajla Rolstad (b. 1978) made her debut with the gothic steampunk suspense novel The Necronaut in 2009. Wolf Island is her second book. Rolstad was born and lives in Lillehammer.
NOVEL/LITERARY MEMOIR // ORIGINAL TITLE: ULVEØYA // 220 PAGES
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Sample translation from the book
I come to the island in the middle of November. It’s my first time alone in Canada, not living with anyone I know. I’m going to be a caretaker, isolated from other people, looking after a private property that belongs to an American family who rent it out as a retreat and outdoor pursuits centre in the summer. There’s no one waiting for me at the airport. I get on a bus, lugging my suitcase and backpack behind me, sleep like the dead at the hotel I booked online in advance. The journey out to the island takes all of the next day. A bus, several ferries, and I’m standing on the quayside, at dusk, arbutus trees shining in the headlights of a lone Toyota pickup truck. A girl with red hair gets out. She introduces herself as Sierra, squeezes my hand in hers. We stow my luggage in the back of the pickup and drive along the winding road. After a quarter of an hour, we turn off onto a bumpy forest trail, driving a distance into the dark cedar forest before parking in a small space between the trees. ‘We need to walk from here,’ Sierra says. ‘I’ll help you with your luggage.’ She takes the suitcase and goes first, leading the way. Switches on a headlamp she’s put on over her Pink Floyd cap. We walk in silence, the edges of the path marked by oyster shells. ‘You can find your way in the dark if the moon is out,’ Sierra says. ‘The oyster shells reflect the moonlight.’ The path winds through the forest, right out to the seafront, for a while it goes along a cliff, across slippery stones, almost invisible. ‘Lavender Island’s over there,’ she says, pointing out into the gloom. ‘You can’t see it now, but in the summer the water around it is the same colour as lavender. At low tide you can wade over, it’s that close. And Wolf Island is a bit further out. There’s a big pack of wolves out there. You might even hear them tonight. Sometimes they swim over from Wolf Island to our island at night and come up onto the beach near the property, especially at low tide, but don’t worry, for the most part they keep well clear of people.’ I shoot her an incredulous look. Translated by Siân Mackie
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Mother’s Gifts Cecilie Enger Winner of the Booksellers’ Prize 2013 Shortlisted for the Critics’ Prize 2013 100,000 copies sold in Norway 12,000 copies sold in Germany When Cecilie Enger’s mother is admitted to a nursing home, with severe Alzheimer, the house Cecilie grew up in is emptied and sold in the space of one weekend. Whilst clearing out the house Cecilie comes across her mother’s meticulous records of the family’s Christmas gifts over four decades. Gifts given and gifts received, to and from people with very different lives. With the lists as a starting point Enger writes the history of her family from the late 19th century until today. Parallel to this story runs another story. In the course of the two years it has taken Cecilie Enger to write Mother’s Gifts, we see the gradual eradication of her mother’s memory and personality. This is a novel about gifts, memory and our yearning to hold on to time.
About the author Cecilie Enger (born 1963) is a writer and a journalist. Her first novel, Necessity, was published in 1994. In 2013 she had a phenomenal breakthrough with Mother’s Gifts, which ended up topping both bestseller charts and critics’ book of the year-lists.
Novel // Original title: Mors gaver // 272 pages Foreign sales // Germany (DVA), Hungary (Typotex), Netherlands (Dutch Media), Romania (Univers) CZECH REPUBLIC (MOBA), SERBIA (SEZAM)
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“A book that pulls you in little by little, that page by page makes you lose yourself in the lives of others” WDR-FS FRAU-TV
“Enger’s new novel is both an insightful piece of cultural history and a wonderfully beautiful portrait of a mother ... the most beautiful book this autumn?” AFTENPOSTEN
“Cecilie Enger has written a powerful, gripping story. It is one of the most beautiful books I have read in a long time.” DAGENS NÆRINGSLIV
“This is Enger’s best book so far. With this novel she finds her place among our leading writers today” Adresseavisen
“This novel has to become Cecilie Enger’s well deserved breakthrough ... A story which also becomes an existential tale of fate that awaits us all.” DAGBLADET
“With power and precision, Cecilie Enger writes about family and lost memories ... Enger’s delicate and precise prose lifts her storytelling to a high level, turning Mother’s Gifts, a documentary novel, into a gripping and interesting read.” KLASSEKAMPEN
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Crossed the River One Night Izzet Celasin Everyone has stories to tell, everyone has something to hide. The year is 1988. Abraham de Africa is an official at the Cuban embassy in Belgrade. He gets to know the Turkish refugee Adam, who has fled from his home country’s military regime and now lives in a transit reception centre in Belgrade. One evening when he is on his way to meet Adam, Abraham is exposed to a kidnap attempt. Adam disappears. Later, an anonymous phone call claims that there is a mole at the embassy, and that Adam’s task was to warn Abraham about it. Can it be true? Or are these merely false rumours spread in order to create unrest at the embassy? Abraham tries to find out what has happened to Adam, and if the rumours are true. He visits the people in Belgrade who have been connected with Adam, first and foremost the other refugees at the transit reception centre. Everyone has crossed rivers in his or her life. Everyone has stories to tell, everyone has something to hide. Gradually, Abraham starts to unravel a truth that deep down he is not looking forward to discovering.
About the author Izzet Celasin was born in 1958 in Istanbul. A leftist political activist in his homeland, he spent several years in prison following the military coup in 1980. He came to Norway as a political refugee in 1988. His debut novel Black Sky, Black Sea (2007) was one of the winners of Gyldendal’s competition for the best political novel and has been translated into 5 languages. Crossed the River One Night is his third novel. Novel // ORIGINAL TITLE: KRYSSET EN NATT ELVEN // 280 PAGES
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The Cocktail Effect Marianne Fastvold A burlesque tapestry of stories about four generations of people who are followed throughout one summer. Summer guests come and stay at Ingrid and Balder’s house down by the fjord – their children with their husbands and new lovers, grandchildren, an old father, a half-sister no one knew anything about, three hens and two old, unpredictable neighbouring sisters. And the writer Ingrid is haunted by the famous colleague who wrote his masterpiece in her writing cabin, and who once lived and died an old-fashioned, dramatic writer’s life there. Ingrid writes with all these people around her about the summer twenty-five years earlier when she fell in love, took her three daughters and left her husband in order to choose a different life. The novel is a burlesque tapestry of stories about four generations, about the conflict between art and life, career and love in past and present, about being a human being, a mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, sweetheart and writer in a new age.
About the author Marianne Fastvold (b. 1951 in Oslo) made her debut with the short story collection Women in Flight in 1991. Several of her books have been translated into German, Danish and other languages.
Novel // ORIGINAL TITLE: COCKTAILEFFEKTEN // 250 PAGES
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Harp Song Levi Henriksen Cool, quirky and bitter-sweet, Harp Song is Levi Henriksen’s warmest – and funniest – novel yet. Shortlisted for the P2 Listeners’ Novel Prize.
“Permanent goosebumps ... an absolutely wonderful novel” Hamar Arbeiderblad
“Powerful” VG
“Great comedy ... Henriksen weaves the three dramatic life stories of love and death elegantly together with the present-time story, which is also full of drama” NRK
Suffering from a severe hangover, record producer Jim Gystad visits Vinger Church and hears divine singing. The voices from the pew behind Jim practically lift him into eternity and away from the dreary, soulless blues he ordinarily spends his working hours trying to breathe life into. And for the first time in ages, his life doesn’t feel completely meaningless. The voices he has heard belong to The Singing Thorsen Siblings. There was a time when the trio, two brothers and a sister, toured the US and sold hundreds of thousands of records like “It’s My Cross to Bear” and “Thirty Silver Coins on Our Father’s Bible”. Then the three siblings found love. And then they lost it. And they don’t perform any longer. From now on Jim’s life only revolves around one thing: a firm decision to make the Thorsen Siblings return to singing. He is about to be severely tested. And the hardest challenge of them all: to bring love back into their lives.
About the author Levi Henriksen made his literary debut in 2002 with the short story collection Fever, followed up by Down, Down, Down the following year. His breakthrough came in 2004, when he he was awarded the Booksellers’ Prize for the novel Snow Will Fall on Fallen Snow.
Novel // Original title: Harpesang // 328 pages Foreign sales // France (Presses de la cité) GERMANY (BTB), ITALY (IPERBOREA), POLAND (SMAK SLOWA)
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Normalia Jan Grue Another collection of inventive, surprising stories from one of our most exciting young writers. Sooner or later a Norwegian citizen will have to take responsibility for the country’s future and start to secrete oil out of his own body. Sooner or later someone will have to save the universities from themselves, and form a resistance movement among frustrated students and pensionedoff professors. Someone will have to decide who qualifies as a grown-up, and who doesn’t. The nation deserves it. We deserve it. All of us live in Normalia. The stories have to do with us, and the bulletins are addressed to us. Read them closely, listen carefully.
“His writing feels concrete and realistic, saturated with metaphorical as well as ironic juice and punch, also when it takes off into the realms of the fantastical, the fable and the parable ... a joyful style” Stavanger Aftenblad
About the author Jan Grue (b. 1981) made his debut in 2010 with the short story collection Everything under Control, which received wonderful reviews. He has since published two more collections of short stories, as well as a picture book for children and an analysis of how physically disabled people are portrayed in our culture.
SHORT STORIES // ORIGINAL TITLE: NORMALIA // 240 PAGES
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Perhaps an Open Place in the World Still Exists Wencke Mühleisen A heart-searching investigation of the longing for radical change – and how badly things can turn out. In 1941 Wencke Mühleisen’s Slovenian father volunteers to join the German Wehrmacht. In 1976, Wencke herself joins Otto Muehl’s Aktionsanalytische Organisation (AAO), an ideological commune based on free sex and common property. She eventually leaves the commune and establishes herself as a gender scholar. Many years later, she discovers a letter from her father, written in the 1980s while she was still part of the AAO. The letter reveals that his attitudes are still dominated by racist thinking. Worst of all, he counts on her understanding him, since she herself has broken so radically with the norms of society. This long-forgotten and repressed letter unleashes an existential crisis in Wencke. What had she – a feminist on the far Left – done that made him – a racist on the far Right – place them in the same category? She starts to delve into her father’s past. At the same time, she has to confront the excesses that took place in the commune, and her own role and responsibility in all this.
About the author Wencke Mühleisen (b. 1953) is a gender scholar at the University of Stavanger. As a performance artist, writer and academic she has worked with our cultural and media-formed understanding of sex and sexuality.
NOVEL/LITERARY MEMOIR // ORIGINAL TITLE: KANSKJE DET ENNÅ FINNES EN ÅPEN PLASS I VERDEN // 240 PAGES
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This Is How We Choose Our Victims Bjørn Vatne A novel about holding on and holding one’s tongue, but raging when no one is watching. Kjetil and Aina dream of making a difference. They are going to leave vulgarised Norwegian culture behind them, move to an organic farming collective in USA, be part of the beginning of a new social order. All they need to do is to save up money for a year first. Then Ingrid, their child, is born. And Aina dies in giving birth to her. Four years later, Kjetil is a single father and adman. He writes brochures about woollen underwear. Does customer servicing. Makes fine videos of the St. Lucia processions in kindergartens. But there is also another Kjetil – the man who writes the destructive blog ‘Distinegration Loops’, about the lack of any future for humanity. This Is How We Choose Our Victims is a novel about holding on and holding one’s tongue, but raging when no one watches. About the boundaries between utterance and action in a world of blogs about keeping fit and tips on interior design.
About the author Bjørn Vatne (b. 1979) has worked as a journalist and communications adviser. This Is How We Choose Our Victims is his first book.
NOVEL // ORIGINAL TITLE: SLIK SKAL VI VELGE VÅRE OFRE // 290 PAGES
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Undis Brekke Gunnhild Øyehaug Sharp, stirring and full of black humour, Gunn hild Øyehaug’s long awaited second novel is an unforgettable read.
“a real pageturner about longing and self-deception - brilliantly written with lots of black humour” KAMILLE
“Few Norwegian writers can depict life’s gravity with a more liberating lightness than Gunnhild Øyehaug” VG
“Incredibly well composed ... an impressively tight and fast-paced novel”
Undis Brekke is about 37-year-old Undis Brekke who returns to the farming community she grew up in, in order to teach Norwegian at the local college, even though she is thoroughly fed up with students. She arrives just in time for the annual Christmas dinner at the faculty for Nordic studies, where she is forced to confront various scraps and pieces of her own childhood and adolescence that she has attempted to sweep under the carpet. Betrayal, hope and anxiety, writer’s block, male and female exes, pre-menstrual syndrome, childhood friends and parents are all potent ingredients in this portrait of a woman who is struggling to keep her head above water. How can you defend your own values, how can you see your own retina, how can you approach your own mother and how can you eat a whole, charcoaled sheep’s head … the novel addresses all these issues.
BERGENS TIDENDE
About the author Gunnhild Øyehaug was born in 1975 and lives in Bergen. Her first work of fiction was a book of poems titled Slave to the Blueberry (1998). She has also published a book of short stories, an essay collection, and the novel Wait, Blink (2008), which became her big breakthrough. She has received several awards for her writing, including The Hunger Award (2009), The Dobloug Award (2009) and Nynorsk Literary Award (2009). Novel // Original title: Undis Brekke // 128 pages FOREIGN SALES // DENMARK (GYLDENDAL)
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Female Eyewitnesses Stories from the Holocaust
Jakob Lothe “If we had observed a minute of silence for each of the six million Jews that were murdered, we would have stood still for twelve years,” says 87 year old Blanche Major from Oslo. In Female Eyewitnesses. Stories from the Holocaust, Major and nine other Jewish women talk about their horrifying experiences from Auschwitz, Theresienstadt, BergenBelsen and other Nazi concentration camps. Surrounded by soldiers, dogs and electric fences, the young girls had one goal in common: to survive. In this book they tell about the humiliation, hunger and despair they experienced. But here are also stories of dignity, solidarity and hope. Each fate is unique, but taken together they display an unbreakable will to live and an astonishing lack of bitter feelings. Female Eyewitnesses is a book that tells the story about what happened and what must never happen again.
“These are eyes that belong to ten women who demonstrate great courage in telling their stories, and who live on — despite all the evil and suffering they have been witness to.” AFTENPOSTEN
“Shows in an exemplary way how quickly a civilised society can fall apart when morals and humanity disappear” POLITIKEN, DENMARK
About the author Jakob Lothe (b. 1950) is a writer, a literary scientist and Professor of English Literature at the University of Oslo. Lothe has written a number of important publications, including Time’s Witnesses. Stories from Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen (2006). It was elected Book of the year by the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet’s readers.
History // Original title: Kvinnelige tidsvitner Foreign Sales // Denmark (KRISTELIGT DAGBLADS FORLAG) , The Netherlands (HET SPECTRUM)
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The Ultimate Crime Victims and Perpetrators in the Norwegian Holocaust
Marte Michelet
“A shocking page-turner about the Norwegian Holocaust” AFTONBLADET, SWEDEN
“The non-fiction book of the year! You will not be able to put down Marte Michelet’s debut about the crime above all crimes, the annihilation of the Jews, written with knowledge, wisdom and edge” VG
October 1942. In an operation to escort Norwegian Jews into safety in Sweden a Norwegian policeman is killed. Shortly after, Minister of Justice Sverre Riisnæs writes the following: “it’s time to get rid of the Jews – and do it properly.” But the story does not start there. Early in the 20th century a young Jewish couple named Braude settles down in Oslo’s East End. They have four children. Elsewhere in the same city Stian Brech Jr. comes of age. His father is a barrister with heavy anti-Semitic leanings, and young Bech is desperate to live up to his father’s expectations. Stian’s and the Braudes’ paths will cross one day, when the war comes. The Ultimate Crime is a shocking tale of resistance fighters, the state police and the Nazi bureaucrats who paved the way for the Holocaust. On November 26, 1942, the victims and the perpetrators came face to face, when 532 Norwegian Jews were led aboard the cargo ship DS Donau and shipped off to Auschwitz.
About the author Marte Michelet (b. 1975) is a journalist with her own column in Dagbladet, one of Norway’s largest newspapers. She often writes about feminist issues, migration and Norwegian refugee politics.
History // Original title: Den største forbrytelsen. Ofre og gjerningsmenn i det norske Holocaust Foreign Sales // SWEDEN (BONNIERS)
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The Life and Times of Leonardo da Vinci Atle Næss This is the first Norwegian-written biography of Leornado da Vinci (1452–1519), the most gifted European ever and one of very few people who deserve the appellation a universal genius. Atle Næss paints a broad picture of Leonardo da Vinci. He follows his journey through Renaissance Europe – from the Medici’s court in Florence to the Sforzas of Milan, the Roman Pope and finally to Europe’s most powerful man, Francis 1 of France. Leonardo da Vinci is primarily known as a painter and creator of masterpieces like Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, but he was also one of his age’s most prominent sculptors, engineers and scientists. He left a vast volume of notes and sketches, and many of these are quoted in the biography. That is the format that best expresses his talent and his unbounded imagination. His entire oeuvre of paintings is also reproduced in the book.
Foreign sales Munch. A Biography (2004): OTAVA, Finland, POLITIKENS FORLAG, Denmark, VES MIR, Russia, WYDAWNICTWO W.A.B., Poland, TÄNAPÄEV, Estonia, ÉDITIONS HAZAN, France, DANIELA STILZEBACH, Germany (e-book) When the Earth Stood Still. Galileo Galilei (2001): LEOPARD FÖRLAG, Sweden, SPRINGER VERLAG, Germany (English world rights), PANDORA PUBLISHING, Romania, JORGE ZAHAR EDITOR Ltda, Brazil
About the author Atle Næss (b. 1949) is a writer and a philologist. He has published a number of novels and documentary books. His biographies of Edvard Munch and Galileo Galilei have been translated into several languages.
Biography // Original title: Leonardo da Vinci og hans tid Foreign Sales // germany (matrix)
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Armfeldt’s Army A Tale of a Disaster
Geir Pollen
“A masterpiece. To be read of every one.” Roy Jacobsen
In August 1718 general Carl Gustaf Armfeldt had 10,000 men under his command in Jämtland, Sweden. The Swedish king Charles 12 had ordered him to take the Norwegian city Trondheim, in a desperate bid to retain Sweden’s position among Europe’s most powerful nations. Nothing went according to plan. Only five months later, 3,000 of Armfeldt’s poorly equipped soldiers had frozen to death in a blizzard on the mountain border between Sweden and Norway – Scandinavia’s worst mountain disaster ever. This book tells the whole, dramatic story of this final campaign of the Great Nordic War. It’s a story of megalomania and power struggle, demotivated soldiers and belligerent Norwegians. Despite large Swedish casualties, Armfeldt’s invasion cost even more Norwegian lives. They died of starvation and diseases the war carried with it. This is a dramatic chapter of Norwegian and Swedish history, efficiently told by one of the masters of the trade.
About the author Geir Pollen (b. 1953) is a prize-winning author and translator. He was chairman of the Norwegian Writers’ Association from 2001 to 2005.
History // Original title: Armfeldts armé. Historien om en katastrofe Foreign Sales // SWEDEN (LIND & CO.)
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