Gyldendal Agency - Foreign Rights Guide by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag

Gyldendal Agency Foreign Rights Guide Spring/Summer 2022

Anne Cathrine Eng anne.cathrine.eng@gyldendal.no Foreign Rights Director Nina Pedersen nina.pedersen@gyldendal.no Literary Agent Kirsti Kristoffersen kirsti.kristoffersen@gyldendal.no Film & TV Rights // Visitor address Sehesteds gate 4 0130 Oslo, Norway Postal address P.o. box 6860, St. Olavs plass 0130 Oslo, Norway https://agency.gyldendal.no

FICTION NOVELS // CRIME THRILLER // ESSAY

FICTION NOVELS

Stargate

Ingvild Hedemann Rishøi “I didn’t name you Ronja so that you could grow up in Tøyen,” Ronja’s dad tells her. 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.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2021 150 pages FOREIGN SALES: Sweden, Bokförlaget Flo Denmark, Batzer & co Germany, duMont Russia, AST Spain, Galaxia Gutenberg France, Mercure de France Netherland, Koppernik

“Rishøi’s heartfelt depictions of living conditions in modern Norway are reminiscent of the most classic of Christmas tales.” Adresseavisa “Ingvild H. Rishøi is the new Astrid Lindgren … A world of magic, imagination and pain all at the same time.” Uppsala Nya Tidning “Stargate is a new adventure for a new time, an outstanding version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl.” Jyllands-Posten

Ingvild Hedemann Rishøi Ingvild H. Rishøi (born 1978) made her literary debut in 2007 with DO NOT ERASE, a short story collection which was selected Book of the Month in the BNB Book Club and received brilliant reviews. Winner of Book Blogger’s Prize (2015), Critics’ Prize (2014), Brage Prize (2014), P.O. Enquist Prize (2013), The Hunger Prize (2012), The Unified Norwegian Language Prize (2011) Kulturhuset Stadsteaterns Internationella Litteraturpris (2019) 4

FICTION NOVELS

Moments for Eternity Kjersti Anfinnsen

In Birgitte Solheim’s experience, love becomes no less demanding even once she reaches ninety. Her life with and feelings for her partner Javiér are just as vivid, even if she is trapped and isolated by physical decline. Her world is limited to the four walls of her home and her daily walk, with little joys and a lot of darkness. Birgitte uncompromisingly reflects on life’s worst moments and what remains with her of loss, grief and bereavement in a world that seems more and more alien to her. Moments for Eternity is a life-affirming novel about love, death and the loneliness of life, and is the second and final book about retired heart surgeon Birgitte Solheim. Nominated for The European Union Prize for Literature.

Publisher: Kolon Publication year: 2021 112 pages FOREIGN SALES: Denmark, Vild Maskine Bulgaria, Izida ltd.

The Last Signs of Love A tender, bitter and surprisingly humorous novel about looking back at life, on the loneliness of existence, and on searching for love – and perhaps finding it. Birgitte has grown so old that all her friends are dead. Frail and alone, she spends most of her time in her apartment in Paris, where she is trapped by physical decline and memories of a long life lived. She has had a demanding career as heart surgeon in an environment dominated by men, and having a family has never been a priority. Birgitte is a sharp, witty character who is attempting to reconcile her life while taking a final glimpse at people and the world. In spite of her lifetime of wisdom and experience, she refuses to give up on her dream of love.

Kjersti Anfinnsen

Publisher: Kolon Publication year: 2019 144 pages FOREIGN SALES: Denmark, Vild Maskine Russia, Polyandria Bulgaria, Izida ltd.

Kjersti Anfinnsen was born in 1975 and lives in Oslo. She took a Creative Writing course at the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art and works as a dentist. The last Signs of Love is her second book. Awarded the “Havmann” prize 2020. 5

FICTION NOVELS

Power Hanna Dahl

In the novel Power, we meet Olav, a 75-year-old Norwegian veteran of the Waffen-SS. He gives his account of one of the operations he participated in on the German side during the Second World War and the life that followed in its wake. As one of Hitler’s so-called silver foxes, in March 1945 he was given a demanding special assignment. Together with five others, he was put ashore by submarine on the coast of Finnmark. Once there, they carry out their mission from their base in one of the caves previously used by the resistance. “Operation Schneehund” was carried out in the very last days of the war, while the rest of the country waited and hoped for imminent capitulation and liberation.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2021 160 pages

In the novel, Hanna Dahl explores how a human being lives with the burden of the consequences of his own words and actions. Power is a novel about identity, guilt, responsibility and the temptation to tell your story in a way you and those closest to you can live with. The novel is inspired by real events. “This is an exercise for myself, I am putting myself in an important person’s place. And hearing someone wish me well on my journey. I must apologise to anyone who has suffered irreparable loss due to that greeting. It sounds wicked and crude, even to me.” “Original, fascinating and with an utterly assured sense of style.” Stavanger Aftenblad

Hanna Dahl Hanna Dahl (b. 1977) is from Modum. She has an education in language and literature, with the main emphasis on Russia and the former Yugoslavia. Her short story Crusader was published in the Norwegian Granta. Hanna Dahl lives in Oslo.

FICTION NOVELS

The Treasure and the Thief Erik Eikehaug

Vetle is the son of an enormously successful author and, like his brother Fartein, is trying to follow in his father’s footsteps. 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? 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.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2022

Erik Eikehaug Young, talented writer of critically acclaimed debut novel about family, sexuality, being yourself, the need to write, and the importance of making yourself heard. 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. James Franco spits when he talks, his debut novel, received excellent reviews after it was released.

FICTION NOVELS

The White Map Cecilie Enger

A gripping historical novel from Cecilie Enger. They set out as pioneers of their time in the late 1800s, but kept their private lives hidden. Bertha Torgersen and Hanna Brummenæs are unknown figures to most people, but the story of the two shop girls who met in Karmøy’s hard, masculine mining community, and – wearing men’s hats and coats – forced their way into male-dominated positions, is both astonishing and moving. These two transgressive ‘male-women’ kept their love a secret from the world around them and embarked on an extraordinary journey up through the social ranks, but also experienced misery in the wake of their life choices.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: July 2021 270 pages FOREIGN SALES: Germany, Random House Poland, Smak Słowa Hungary, Typotex

“An intimate and down-to-earth portrait of two Norwegian pioneers in sexuality, commerce, and gender equality. [...] Enger conjures up the soul of Bertha Torgersen’s main character.” Leif Bull, Dagens Næringsliv “The White Map is a novel about daring to choose one’s own path. It’s the tale of two women who went to great lengths to add more colour to that map.” Anne Cathrine Straume, NRK

Cecilie Enger Award winning writer with strong portraits of female characters. Cecilie Enger was born in 1963, and has studied history, Norwegian and journalism. She also works as a feature journalist when she is not writing critically-acclaimed novels. Her big break came with Mother’s Gifts in 2013, which sold internationally and earned her the Booksellers’ Prize that year. She is best known for biographical and historically-inspired novels as well as strong portraits of female characters.

FICTION NOVELS

My Human Herbjørg Wassmo

Ruth and Gorm. She is an established artist from a poor background on an island off the coast of northern Norway. He is a merchant’s son from the same part of the country. They have had a place in each other’s consciousness ever since their first random encounter as children, but it is only as adults, with broken marriages and new beginnings behind them, that they meet in earnest. My human is the story of these two, of Ruth’s relationship to painting and recognition, of Gorm’s quest for a life of greater meaning. The urge they both have to live something that feels true is both weakened and intensified by conditions in northern Norway and forthright pragmatism. In this novel, Wassmo further explores some of the themes that have characterised her authorship: the decisive rebellion against the cards life deals you, and the price of this rebellion for oneself and one’s surroundings. But above all, it’s about the vital need to meet the person in life that you can call your own. “Masterful Wassmo! (…) This is that burdensome love in Wassmo’s superb hands. (…) And she knows how to assemble scenes and create drama, the only thing to do is abandon yourself to her great new epic My Human” – VG

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2021 450 pages FOREIGN SALES: Denmark, Lindhardt og Rinhof France, Acte Sud/Gaïa Lithuania, Alma Littera Latvia, Zvaigzne ABC Publishers Netherland, DeGeus

Herbjørg Wassmo Receiver of the Nordic Council’s Prize 1987. Her works have been published in 29 countries. Herbjørg Wassmo (born 1942) has earned her position and popularity in Norway and abroad through her ability as a powerful storyteller with a special care for the exposed and vulnerable characters. She made her début in 1976 with a collection of poetry. Her breakthrough came with the first novel about Tora, The House with the Blind Glass Windows (Huset med den blinde glassveranda) 1981, followed by two volumes forming the famous Tora Trilogy. These books contribute to a Norwegian realistic tradition about the coming of age of the unusual and artistic child. The voice of Herbjørg Wassmo has a poetic and evocative power, taking the reader very close to the disintegration of the small human being and her fight for dignity. 9

FICTION NOVELS

My Friends Monica Isakstuen

My Friends is a story of friendships. Conflicted friendships, convenience-friendships, invading friendships, good-old-friendships and those fresh and shiny budding friendships that sometimes resemble falling in love.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2021 272 pages Foreign sales: Denmark, Turbine Film Rights: Pia Tjelta & Tuva Novotny Stage Rights: Riksteatret (Norway)

Our protagonist has made an enemy. Frenemy? What should she call a brilliant best friend whose face she wants to rip off while digging out the flesh from the jaws with her fingers? How she dreads her former friend’s story of her, her version of events. At a big, horrible surprise birthday party our protagonist is confronted with every friend she’s had throughout her life, or perhaps rather with every friend she has been over the years. The speeches given are absurdly honest and increasingly confrontational. Norwegian Book Prize-winner Monica Isakstuen is heartbreakingly funny and painfully precise in her take on the marvels and pitfalls of grown-up friendships. “Temperature is soaring when Monica Isakstuen takes on controlling and intimidating female friendships in her new, groundbreaking novel (…) A poetic intensity, paste and temperature that has the reader’s heart pounding” Maya Troberg Djuve, Dagbladet “My Friends by Monica Isakstuen is alluring and inhospitable at the same time. It this was a work of music, I would call it poetic punk. Raw and confrontational.” Christen Hvam, Fredriksstad Blad

Monica Isakstuen Monica Isakstuen (b. 1976) made her literary debut in 2009. Her 2014 novel Replay about pianist Joyce Hatto and the greatest fraud in classical music earned rave reviews, with VG naming it “one of the best books of the year”. She won the 2016 Norwegian Book Award Brageprisen for fiction for her novel Be Kind to The Animals.

FICTION CRIME

Krinsil: First Paths Simen B Hagerup

Mysterious forces draw the pensioner Tatiana to a strange and foreign world where humans live in harmony with unpredictable spirit beings. Tatiana comes to a community in the shadow of a fallen empire and allies herself with a local fisherman. Together, they embark on a journey across continents to find their way home. First Paths is fantasy for adults and Simen B. Hagerup’s debut novel. The book is an extraordinary story of origins and a tale of loss – well written, witty and sublime.

Publisher: Kolon Publication year: 2021 238 pages

Simen B Hagerup Simen B. Hagerup was born in Porsgrunn in 1980 and now lives in Fredrikstad. He has studied in Bø, Copenhagen, Paris and Stockholm. In addition to publishing several books of poems and prose with Norwegian publishers, he has worked as a translator and critic, and with minor publications, festivals and so on.

FICTION MEMOIR

If I Fall

An Account of Work Unseen Jan Grue

There are times I forget I’m disabled. I can dwell in a self, in a body, that is simply me. But the world never forgets. It’s merely waiting for a good opportunity to remind me. If I Fall is an exploration of the particular vulnerability that accompanies chronic sickness and disability. In this account founded on his own life and experiences, Jan Grue explores how society meets this vulnerability with a demand for unseen work – for those with physical disabilities to have to toil even harder, to have to work even more, to be accepted as a person of full value. Winner of P.O. Enquist Prize 2021.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2021 192 pages Foreign sales: Denmark, Gutkind

“If I Fall is one of those books that makes you wiser for reading it; a book that leaves you with immense gratitude for the author’s ability.” – Oda Faremo Lindholm, VG “Jan Grue initiates crucial conversations about vulnerability, society and disability. […] ‘I want a different world’, Grue has also written, somewhere in I Live a Life Like Yours: ‘I want it to be more open, more free.’ With his work in If I Fall, he actually takes us in that direction, and it deserves to be seen in full.” – Carina E. Beddari, Klassekampen Heart-rending. […] Powerful autobiographical prose about vulnerability.”

Jan Grue Grue’s work deals with embodiment - with what it means to be a body in an endlessly complex world. Combining literary exploration and elements of science fiction and speculative fiction, his stories trouble the issues of what makes a meaningful life and how we value different kinds of lives. His works has been sold to 7 countries so far.

Dagbladet

FICTION MEMOIR

I Live a Life Like Yours Jan Grue

A masterpiece memoir about life in a vulnerable body. I have a congenital muscular dystrophy. I use a wheelchair. I have a college education, a job. I’m a family man. On the surface, I’m well-off. What had to happen for me to reach this point? I Live a Life Like Yours is about life in a vulnerable body. It is a story about work, about dreams and a longing to live like everyone else. It is a book about life, both common and uncommon. “Into the unknown: we don’t know where we’re going. We are sailing in a leaky boat; we know that we’re dying animals. With dreams of Byzantium, we bail out as much water as we can, sailing onward, together. We are Argonauts, astronauts, adventurers, explorers. This is our journey.” Winner of P.O Enquist Prize 2021 Winner of the Literay Critic’s Prize 2018 Nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2019 FOREIGN SALES: Sweden, Weyler UK, Pushkin Press Denmark, Gutkind Korea, Book 21

USA, Farrar, Straus & Giroux Netherlands, Uitgeverij Oevers Iceland, Iceland University Press

…“A quietly brilliant book that warms slowly in the hands… Artful” Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2018 176 pages

‘For Grue’s part it is in many ways a life against all odds. He describes it so beautifully and wisely that it makes one think about the great masters of the genre, like American Joan Didion (...) A literary masterpiece that is highly recommended!’ Dagbladet

“Compelling, unconventional and powerfully told... His genius becomes evident in his mastery of language” Michael J. Fox, The New York Times “A masterpiece of own life.”

Stavanger Aftenblad “So sympathetic, so successful, so precise, with such a light literary touch.” “This stunning work isn’t to be missed.” Bok365 Publishers Weekly, US 13

NON-FICTION ESSAY

Echo

Lena Lindgren An essay on algorithms and desire. An investigative essay into some of the greatest challenges of our time: Echo was the nymph who talked too much. For this, she was sentenced to a fate in which she could only repeat what others said. In the 2000s, we meet Echo in the principles of media technology: in viral memes, social-media shitstorms and echo chambers. Whoever has the algorithms on their side wins the attention economy’s highest prize: being visible. And Echo’s great love was Narcissus, he who drowned in his own reflection.

Publisher: Gyldendal

In this essay, Lena Lindgren combines economics, mythology, psychology and science with scenes from Silicon Valley. It is a judgement of our age, a stream of consciousness, and an attempt to portray humanity’s blind date with artificial intelligence.

Publication year: April 2021 208 pages

Winner of the Brage Prize for Best Non-Fiction Book 2021.

FOREIGN SALES: Denmark, Straarup & Co

“Highly recommended!”

Marius Wulfsberg, Dagbladet

“... this is brilliantly considered, first-class essay-writing.” Kjetil Røed, Vårt Land ““It never gets dull. In the end, I was left with the feeling of having been to something of an intellectual party.” – Per Kristian Bjørkeng, Aftenposten

Lena Lindgren Lena Lindgren (born 1969) lives in Oslo. She is a political editor at Morgenbladet. Echo. An essay on algorithms and desire is her first book.

FICTION PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

Tom Beyond the Other Runar K. Dahle

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. 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. 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.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2022 270 pages

Runar K. Dahle 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. 15

FICTION THRILLER

Red Star Ørjan N. Karlsson

Book 3

This is the third book about Ida Vinterdal, squad leader in the special forces Group Alpha. 1 January 2021: Norway becomes a member of the UN Security Council. Five weeks later, Monrad Foyn, Norway’s ambassador to the UN, is found dead at his New York residence. On Svalbard, the Norwegian police make a shocking discovery when the bodies of two Russian special forces are found outside a controversial radar station. Is there a connection between the two cases? Ida Vinterdal, who is sent to Svalbard to assist the police, believes so. Some people, at least, are willing to go to any length to keep the truth from emerging. A truth that could have huge consequences for Norway and the High North. This is the third book about Ida Vinterdal, squad leader in the special forces Group Alpha.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: May 2021

“The best thrillers are the ones that capture all or parts of reality. Ørjan N. Karlsson achieves this in his books featuring Ida Vinterdal, squad leader in the Norwegian Special Forces Group Alpha, as the lead character.” Finn Senstad, Tønsbergs blad

384 pages

“Anyone who wants excitement and international entanglements in the heat of summer will get it in full over Red Star by Ørjan N. Karlsson’s 370 pages.” Jan Øyvind Helgesen, Nettavisen Book 1

Book 2

“The author has written one of the best thrillers of the year so far. This is near-perfect summer reading.” Ørjan Greiff Johnsen, Adressavisa

FICTION CRIME

Almost Home Ørjan N. Karlsson

Almost Home is an arctic noir featuring the midnight sun and dark secrets in the depths of winter.

Almost Home

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. 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. Almost Home is the first title in a new arctic noir series.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2022

Ørjan N. Karlsson 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. 17

FICTION CRIME

The Eclipse and the Light Jørgen Brekke

A nail-biting mystery from a weather-beaten island on the Helgeland coast. It’s March 2020 when true crime writer Helene Paus receives a letter from the infamous and legendary Hollywood director Paal Ylvingen. Thirty years ago, Ylvingen fled from murder charges in Mexico. He has since isolated himself from the outside world on the windswept island of Ytre Dunet on the Helgeland coast, surrounded only by a small circle of trusted staff. Ylvingen is finally ready to tell the truth about the murder case. Together with colleague Espen Aas, Paus heads north. As Norway is on the brink of being caught up in a worldwide pandemic, a solitary, weather-beaten island seems like the safest place to be.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2022 304 pages

But is Ylvingen really as concerned with revealing the truth about the murder in Mexico as he says? Who can Paus and Aas trust among Ylvingen’s staff on the island? And might the director’s diary tell us about what happened in Mexico on the night of the murder? A storm blows up and soon Paus and Aas’s route back to the mainland is cut off. Terrible events occur, and it soon becomes clear that the virus has somehow found its way to Ytre Dunet.

Jørgen Brekke Jørgen Brekke (b. 1968) has a background as a literary critic and has worked as a freelance journalist for some years. Brekke made his literary debut with the acclaimed crime novel Where Monsters Dwell in 2011. It is translated into 14 languages. The critically acclaimed follow-ups Dreamless (2012) and The Nature of Man (2013) both feature police investigator Odd Singsaker and his American colleague/girlfriend Felicia Stone. 18

FICTION CRIME

The Black Swan Ingrid Berglund

The shady dealings of big pharma, a life-or-death pursuit, and an unsolved disappearance from the past culminate in an explosive encounter in the epic landscape of Northern Norway. They’re an odd couple, the young estate lawyer Oda Krogh and her aging assistant, Børre Simonsen. Both of them have been ditched by their significant other, and their joint investigative practice is a not entirely successful attempt to get back on their feet again. Then a dying woman arrives at the door with one last wish. Against their better instincts, they take on the assignment: to find the woman’s son, who is said to have drowned five years earlier. The only thing Oda and Børre have to go on are four shells someone has sent the doomed mother. As they dig into the past, they discover more suspicious deaths. They also see disturbing indications that the pharmaceutical industry has blood on its hands. The search for the truth quickly attracts the attention of individuals who only become more dangerous the more the pandemic spreads – and soon it is Oda and Børre who are being hunted down.

Publisher: Gyldendal Publication year: 2022

Ingrid Berglund Ingrid Berglund (b. 1966) holds a master’s degree in economics and finance. Her background spans from working as a bartender in London and an auxiliary nurse in Australia to being a financial analyst at Chase Manhattan Bank and Norsk Hydro. She grew up in Sørreisa and Svelvik, and now lives in Høvik. Ingrid is the sister of crime writer Anita Berglund.

FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS

The Ice Palace Tarjei Vesaas

The story of the friendship between two young girls. 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. 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 forces, dreams ands desires struggle for power. The Ice Palace (1963) won the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1964, and represents Tarjei Vesaas at the peak of his creative powers. Publisher: Gyldendal 144 pages

Tarjei Vesaas 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 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. His novels have been translated into 28 Languages. 20

FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS

The Birds Tarjei Vesaas

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. 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. Nature reveals secrets to Mattis. He can decipher the language of birds. He can read the letters that the woodcock writers to him with its beak and feet. And he can articulate 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. 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 sister Hege and all those who want to help Mattis, but who can’t reach all the way in to him.

Publisher: Gyldendal 208 pages

In 1967 The Birds was made into a film by the Polish director Witold Leszczynski.

FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS

The Alberta Trilogy Cora Sandel

Cora Sandel, pseudonym for Sara Fabricius (1880– 1974), er en av Norges største forfattere. Hun var 46 år gammel da hun utga sin debutroman Alberte og Jakob i 1926, og det skulle ta henne tretten år å fullføre trilogien om Alberte med romanene Alberte og friheten (1931) og Bare Alberte (1939).

Publisher: Gyldendal 782 pages

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. 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. 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.

“She writes in a low key, with exact domestic detail, unhurried, lucid and sure. The picture she builds up is unforgettable.” Daily Telegraph “She has a place to herself among the finest contemporary writing.” Guardian 22

FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS

Krane’s Pastry Shop Cora Sandel

At Krane’s pastry shop in a northern Norwegian town, two people, the world-weary Katinka Stordal and the roustabout Bowler Hat, each lonely outcasts in their own ways, have a chance encounter. 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.

Publisher: Gyldendal

Cora Sandel 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. 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.

FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS

Hunger (1890) 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.

Publisher: Gyldendal 208 pages

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. «The most outstanding Norwegian writer since Ibsen.»

TLS

Knut Hamsun 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. 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.

FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS

Pan (1894) Knut Hamsun

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. A man of fascinating complexity, Glahn is in some respects a modern successor to a long line of «superfluous» men in western literature, an heir to Goethe’s Werther and the protagonists of Turgenev and Dostoyevsky. 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 unconscious by means of thoroughly modern techniques. Pan’s quasi-musical modulations of pace and rhythm, its haunting 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. Publisher: Gyldendal 208 pages

FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS

Growth of the Soil (1917) 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. 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

FICTION SELECTED CLASSICS

Victoria (1898) Knut Hamsun

This beautiful and moving story of young love was hailed by the New York Times as «A sustained feat of shimmering lyricism». 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 forever 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. Deceptively 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.»

Publisher: Gyldendal 112 pages