GYLDENDAL AGENCY
Foreign Rights Guide | Fall 2024 Fiction
Gyldendal Agency
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
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UNDER THE PAVING-STONES, THE BEACH! Johan Harstad
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2024
Pages: 971
Foreign Sales: Netherlands, Podium Germany, Ullstein Denmark, Gutkind Croatia, Oceanmore
Under the Paving-Stones, the Beach! is a novel about the discovery of a paving-stone shaped object which, when touched, allegedly creates the illusion of having lived an entire lifespan within seven minutes. Centered around a group of teens in late-nineties Stavanger, but containing numerous historical and geographical detours to places like The Soviet Union, Berlin, Warszawa, Akureyri, Shanghai and not least the island Tristan da Cunha in the sixties, and populated by everything from suburban youth on the hunt for the next industrial exhaust fan to warm up by in the evenings to Cold War spies with multiple sets of faltering loyalties, Zapatistas on a local level and pot wholesalers of dubious mental caliber, young people in love and amateur radio dads who are all widowers, oldschool sailors and new-school sailors, Icelandic EcoTerrorists, suicidal single moms and self-crossing clinical directors, some who are psychiatric patients and some who probably should’ve been, an adventurous meteorologist from Forus, Stavanger and an astrophysicist with an urgent need to explain himself about non-academical topics, and guest starring people like Andrej Tarkovsky and Erich Mielke, the novel explores the idea that time might never really have been on our side after all. This is a large-scale story about waiting; for life to begin, for things to pass, waiting for the right one, waiting for death and waiting in vain. It is the novel about Ingmar, Jonatan and Peter. And Ebba.
«A LITERARY MASTERPIECE. An homage to the world’s raging realities and amazing opportunities.»
VG
«Under the Paving-Stones, the Beach! isamassiveachievement fromamanwithanextra-ordinaryknackforstorytellingandan affinitybothforhorrormovies,spythrillersandcowboyclassics. Thebestofthebestinthisenormousnovelisthecoming-of-age storysettoForusandStavangerinthe90s,aheartfeltandat thesametimecarefreestoryoffriendship,loveandtheyouthful restlessnessofwaitingforsomethingwonderfultohappen.»
NRK
«This is the biggest novel of the year. A triple album of a novel, it elegantly weaves together different genres: sci-fi, spy thriller, nonfiction and coming-of-age. It all results in a tremendous read, a harrowing and highly relevant novel of our time.»
Adresseavisen
Johan Harstad (b. 1979) is a Norwegian author and playwright. He made his debut in 2001 with the short prose collection Herfra blir du bare eldre(FromHereoninYou JustGetOlder) and have since published collections of short stories, plays, a YA novel, as well as the novels Buzz Aldrin, WhatHappenedtoYouin All the Confusion? (2005), Hässelby (2007) andMax, Mischa & The Tet Offensive (2015). The latter, which has received overwhelming acclaim in Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, was awarded the Dutch Europese Literatuurprijs in 2018. The production of the play Osv. (Etc.) at the National Theatre, where Harstad was the inhouse playwright in 2009, was awarded the Ibsen Prize. He has also been awarded the Hunger Prize for his «younger, eminent» literary work, and the prestigious Svenska Akademiens Dobloug Award for his authorship. His books have been published in over 30 countries. Harstad lives in Oslo.
NOT PEOPLE I CAN DEPEND ON Kyrre Andreassen
One day, after twenty years of marriage, Svein stood in front of the microwave and declared he no longer had feelings for me. It was 2014, and he probably still thinks I never gave him enough love and that’s why the relationship ended. More people probably believe his version than mine, too, but that’s because his sphere of influence has been bigger: there’s much more traffic at Autopartner than at the municipal office.
Not People I Can Depend On is about Linda Hansen, a mother of two and a municipal employee. It’s a novel about realizing that your husband is chasing after Veronika Hagen, the only woman in the village with a modicum of glamor. It’s a book about pride, shame—and a growing desire for revenge.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2024 Pages: 397
Kyrre Andreassen (b. 1971) debuted in 1997 with the short story collection This Is Where You Have Your Friends. His second book, Barringer (1999), was nominated for the Brage Prize for best novel. In 2006, his novel Svendsen’s Catering earned him the Linguistic Society’s Literature Prize and in 2007, he received the Hunger Prize for his authorship. His novel Furthermore, I Believe Carthage Must be Destroyed (2016) was also nominated for the Brage Prize.
«There is something liberating to it when Andreassen breathes life into the little devil that reside within many of us.»
Vårt Land
«Bitter, furious and exceedingly funny novel from Kyrre Andreassen.»
Dagens Næringsliv
HERE COMES THE SUN Gunnhild Øyehaug
I’m only here to escape the sudden and burning love that will consume me if I don’t do something to get away from it right now.
Helga Mork is going through menopause and has resigned herself to living alone beside a big, silent stone. But when some new neighbors move into the empty house next door, she feels she’s found her soulmate in one of them and her shield of pessimism is no longer useful. She rents an office that turns out to be a portal into another reality where everyone speaks in a whisper. How will she get back to the real world?
Here Comes the Sun is a love story that searches for hope in human communication, where fiction and reality are constantly blending, making it difficult to distinguish one from the other—except, perhaps, for the things that shine the brightest.
Publisher: Kolon
Publication year: 2024
Pages: 180
Gunnhild Øyehaug (b. 1975) grew up in Ørsta and lives in Bergen. She debuted with a poetry collection in 1998 and has since published short stories, novels, and essays. She has received several awards, including the Hunger Prize (Sultprisen) and the Dobloug Prize (Doblougprisen) for her authorship, and her works have been translated into several languages.
«Here Comes the Sun isanextraordinarilygreatlove storyfromalearnedwriterwhodoesnothideherrefined literaryeducation.Butsheshowsitwithgreathumour, witanddisarmingelegance.»
BT
«…itisatruedelighttotrotaboutinthisforestofanovel,togive oneselfovertoØyehaug’shorizon-broadeningandlife-affirming humoristicgaze,whichtimeandtimeagaincreatesclearingsin thewilderness.»
Vårt land
THE CHINESE ROOM
Jan Grue
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2024
Pages: 350
2027. The boundary between artificial intelligence and human consciousness has been blurred on the internet for a long time. Is the physical world next?
In the tech metropolis of Shenzhen, China, a young mother is shocked when her husband suggests they get rid of their four-month-old baby; the new addition to the family has lowered his quality of life beyond levels he deems acceptable.
In the state capital of Sacramento, California, a top politician suddenly becomes strikingly articulate, but also starts proposing increasingly disturbing political ideas.
And somewhere in the Negev Desert in Israel, a programmer wakes up in a locked room, completely isolated from his surroundings. All over the world, people are lapsing into a strange, passive state, and suicide rates are increasing dramatically. Philosopher Philip Vinge is among the few who suspect that a new and more dangerous pandemic has broken out: a virus that attacks the very meaning of life. But in Philip’s home country of Norway—the safest and most peaceful nation on the planet—almost no one believes in this virus. Here, authorities and citizens alike are far too logical, too rational… almost like machines.
The Chinese Room is a philosophical thriller about existential questions, truth and narratives, and what it means to be human.
Jan Grue (b. 1981) holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and works at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo. He debuted with the short story collection Everything Under Control (2010) and has since published several short story collections. His first novel, It Doesn’t Get Better, came out in 2016.
His autobiographical book I Live a Life Like Yours was published in 2018 and was awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize and was also nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize. The book has been translated into several languages. In 2021, he published another book in the same genre: If I Fall: A Story About Invisible Work. The book was awarded the P.O. Enquist Prize.
THE DOORS ARE CLOSING
Maren Elise Skolem
Maren Skolem (b. 1991) has a degree in screenwriting from the Norwegian Film School and attended the writing programs in Bø and Tromsø. She is working in film at TV. Skolem debuted in 2022 with the young adult novel What I Did with the Money. The Doors are Closing is her first novel for adults.
«In this novel, romance and neuroses make for smart and amusing entertainment. […] Wisdom keeps surfacing, the observations are sharp and funny.»
NRK
For Freya, a 34-year-old bartender, life is all about checking. She checks, double-checks, and triple-checks if she remembered to lock all the doors, if the stove is off, if she left the tap on, or if her phone is accidentally calling someone right when she’s talking about them. She checks herself for cancer and ticks. And she tries—but not without a certain degree of ambivalence—to check out men.
Because unfortunately for Freya, she is also burdened with hope—a cursed feeling that makes her strive for things beyond her reach. But what are you supposed to do when what you hope for is also what you fear the most? And how do you write a Tinder bio when you’ve never really even dared to be yourself?
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag Publication year: 2024 Pages: 224
FADING LIGHT Kristin Vego
How am I to go about talking of this period? The little pockets of time where there were no other witnesses: These are the ones I want to gather, like jellyfish, and lift up for the light to shine through. To observe the threads in there.
Johanne rents a room in a white house in the countryside. Almost without noticing, she slips into a relationship with Mikael, the man who lives there. It develops into a love lasting a lifetime. With the relationship comes Mikael’s daughter, his ex-wife, the characteristic landscape surrounding them. Seventeen years later, Johanne sits in the house alone, beginning to pen down their story as the days grow shorter and autumn turns to winter.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag Publication year: 2024 Pages: 142 Foreign Sales: Denmark, Turbine
Kristin Vego (b. 1991) is a Danish-Norwegian author from Aarhus, Denmark, living in Oslo. She made her debut in 2021 with the short story collection Look Your Last on All Things Lovely. The book was published in Danish in 2022. For her debut, she was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas Debut Prize in Norway and the Bogforum Debut Prize in Denmark. Vego is a former editor of the literary magazine Vagant and a literary critic in Dagbladet Information. Late in the Day is her first novel.
«FadingLightispackedwitheffortlessliteraryreferences aswellasgorgeousmetaphors[…]Melancholy,absolutely, butKristinVego’sdescriptionsofpassingtimeandchanging seasonsaremorethananythingbrimmingwithbeauty.»
Aftenposten
«… a finely tuned story about love and longing.»
Bok365
«A remarkably good novel» Morgenbladet
EVERYTHING I FEAR HAS ALREADY HAPPENED Wencke Mühleisen
Wencke Mühleisen (b. 1953) is a researcher in gender and media at the University of Stavanger. As a performance artist, writer and researcher she has worked with our cultural and media-formed understanding of sex and sexuality.
What is a woman to do after being left by her partner in her late middle age?
The first spring spent alone, she thinks of nature as beauty wasted on a dead soul, and stays alive out of sheer politeness. She can’t bear the idea of spending the rest of her life without someone to curl up to. She makes dating profiles on several apps, the only remaining arena for meeting people in the time of the pandemic. At the same time, she shrinks at the thought of going to bed with an unknown, imperfect body, to showcase her own decline and expose herself to a stranger.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2024
Pages: 192
Foreign Sales: Germany, Harper Collins
«This is a deeply existential novel about being an older, abandoned, longing woman. The book is raw, frisky, and rebellious. And, the way I read it, wistful.»
Sissel Gran, psychologist and couples’ therapist
«If sexuality and old age is a topic not often discussed, this novel contributes to right that wrong. Mühleisen’s laconic sense of humour fits the topic well, and the story balances elegantly between the hopeful and the tragicomic.» Klassekampen
IGGY Edy Poppy
Edy Poppy (b. 1975) writes inquiringly and bravely about life as an artist, unconventional ways of love, and motherhood, and is a unique voice in contemporary Norwegian literature.
«…an intense novel from the talented and daring Edy Poppy[...] Iggy is written with a vehement and fascinating drive, a novel with several layers, brave and without compromise.»
VG
«There's not a plethora of Norwegian novels about horny, whiskey-drinking, writing women who on top of all this discuss the yearning for a child. Author Edy Poppy play with and challenge art and life both in this whirlwind of a novel.»
Klassekampen
We’ve no time to lose, we say to each other, time and time again, like a mantra. Choosing not to keep Iggy has made the mantra even more important. Not choosing Iggy means choosing art, doesn’t it? Marina Abramović has taken three abortions. She claims that having children makes women lag behind in the art world. That you have to be conscious of what you prioritize to spend your energy on. It won’t be on me now, I think, stroking my flat belly.
IGGY is a novel about fear of the conventional and the lust for exceedance. But also about the unsettling loneliness of someone who never wants to make commitments.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag Publication year: 2024 Pages: 203
VALRAVN
Bjørn Andreas Bull-Hansen
Bjørn Andreas Bull-Hansen (b. 1972) debuted with the short story collection Seven Stories From the Western Forest in 1996. Since then, he has written several books across a variety of genres. He had his international breakthrough with his novel Jomsviking (2017), the first title in a sweeping historical series from the Viking Age. The series has been sold to several countries.
The year is 1019. The old kings are dead, and the powerful king Cnut is holding England in an iron grip. Torstein is still cast out from the chief’s seat in Vingulmork in Viken, and in Norway, Olav Haraldsson has claimed power. Torstein’s headstrong son Ravntor is now grown up and has picked a fight with the Wends to the south. He is outlawed. A battle-worn Torstein once again has to head out to seek new alliances, but this time, it proves difficult. It is a new era. The era of the Christian King. By sword and fire, chiefs and landowners are forced to kneel before the crucifix of Christ, and Torstein’s dream of reclaiming Vingulmork seems more distant than ever.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2024
Pages: 496
THE FALL OF THE KINGS
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2023
Pages: 496
THE ARMY OF THE DANES
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2021
Pages: 416
Pages: 576 PREVIOUS
LAND OF THE DANELAW
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2022
Pages: 496
VINLAND
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2019
Pages: 560
JOMSVIKING
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2017
3
SILENT AS SNOW
Ørjan Karlsson
Ørjan N. Karlsson (b. 1970) grew up in Bodø and has published numerous thrillers, science fiction books, crime novels, and audio originals. He has worked for the Ministry of Defence and and is currently head of department at the Directorate for Civil Protection. Silent as Snow is the third book in the series about police investigator Jakob Weber.
In Henningsvær, Lofoten, a young boy is found dead in the middle of the village’s spectacular soccer field. Why would the boy leave the house so poorly dressed in the middle of a freezing February night? Was it a tragic accident—or is someone responsible? Meanwhile, in Bodø, a body is found at the water’s edge. The drowned man is dressed in expensive clothes and has no identification, but is wearing a necklace with a strange symbol around his neck. The two deaths land on the desk of police investigator Jakob Weber. There’s a huge amount of pressure to solve the cases, but Jakob is struggling to focus. His mother is on her deathbed, and old, unsolved murder cases continue to haunt him. Things will soon take a turn for the worse, too: as the past tightens its grip on Jakob, he is also betrayed by someone close to him, and old friends and colleagues aren’t who they seem.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2024
Pages: 300
INTO THIN AIR
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2022
Pages: 336
Foreign Sales: Netherlands, Uitgeverij Marmer Germany, Pendragon UK, Orenda Books Bulgaria, Izida
Nineteen-year-old Iselin Hanssen disappears in Bodø’s popular hiking area, and suspicion quickly falls on her boyfriend. For investigator Jakob Weber, the case seems clearcut, even though there are tiny, barely visible hints that Iselin lived parts of her life beneath the radar of both family and friends. The 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. Rumors that an unknown killer is on the loose begin to spread, terrifying the locals. Then Jakob discovers that this isn’t the first time young women have vanished without a trace in this region.
THE NIGHT TRAVELS ALONE
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2023
Pages: 320
Foreign Sales: The Netherlands, Uitgeverijv Marmer Germany, Pendragon UK, Orenda Books Bulgaria, Izida
Kjerringøy: A hiker arrives at a cabin that isn’t marked on the map. Outside, six ravens hang in cages, all in a row. As he approaches, a figure comes towards him, a faceless man. Down at Kjerringøy’s trading post, Tuva Mjelde and two friends are taking an ice bath. One of them gets stuck in something in the water. They manage to pull her free, but something else drifts to the surface: the body of Emilio, Tuva’s former lover. And a few days later, Tuva is found dead. Around the same time, the young Veronika Paulsen is found dead in Bodø, and someone has attempted to make it look like suicide. Soon investigators Jakob Weber and Noora Yun Sande will come face to face with a wickedness the likes of which they have never encountered.
THE THIRTEENTH STATUE
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.
As an assignment on the last day of school before the summer holidays, a primary school class is asked to count the number of human-sized statues in an underwater park. The answer key says there are a total of twelve, but the kids insist that they found thirteen. Their teacher, Aud Hilde, dives in herself to have a look, and discovers the thirteenth statue – a flesh-and-blood human being. Probate attorney Oda Krogh and her aging assistant Reidar Simonsen are trusted with that task of locating the dependents and distributing the assets of the deceased, a Mr. Muhammed Ikra. However, they soon discover that Ikra actually died seven years ago, before he applied for asylum in Norway. Who is the thirteenth statue, really? Oda and Reidar are soon tangled up in a network of betrayals and fraud, which makes it increasingly difficult to know whom to trust. Nobody seems to be who they claim to be.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2024
Pages: 329
THE BLACK SWAN
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2022
Pages: 336
They’re an odd couple, the young estate lawyer Oda Krogh and her aging assistant, Reidar Simonsen. They have both been left by their own, and their investigative practice is a not entirely successful attempt at getting back up on their feet.
Then a dying woman arrives 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 leads are four shells someone has sent the dying mother.
As they dig into the past, they discover more suspicious deaths and find disturbing indications that the pharmaceutical industry has blood on its hands. The search for the truth quickly become more dangerous –and soon it is Oda and Reidar who are being hunted down.
A SHADOW ON MY GRAVE
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2023
Pages: 304
Estate lawyer Oda Krohg’s task is as simple as it is prestigious: To follow the clear instructions of an enduring power of attorney to distribute the estate of a renowned lawyer and former war hero.
For a long while, everything seems to be going well, if only it wasn’t for Oda’s insatiable curiosity – the very same curiosity that nudges her into doing research about a painting that makes a strange appearance. The painting has a hidden backstory buried since the days of the war –for good reason, as it turns out. And wherever there are deep secrets, there are also lies and deadly deceit.
Oda and Reidar are slowly drawn so far into the drama that they too become a part of it. Perhaps that was precisely the point all along…
WHAT’S YOURS TO KEEP
Inger Johanne Øen
Inger Johanne Øen (b. 1971) comes from Åsa and now lives in Hallingby, Ringerike. What’s Yours to Keep is her debut novel.
Randaberg24
Ringerikes Blad
Nettavisen
An ill grandmother forces the police inspector Silja Frost to return home to Åsa. In the small town of her childhood, time seems to have been standing still. Friends, neighbors, and the parties are all the same – and Leo still possesses a dangerous attraction. Silja's old friend, Ann, is still missing, after disappearing on her way home from a party 19 years ago. The trauma of this event has cast lingering shadows over Åsa. Then, the deceased body of a woman is found on a shut-down farm. It turns out to be Ann. The investigation stirs uneasiness in town, and old grievances resurface. For Silja, things turn personal – to such an extent that several people want her off the case. The closer she gets to finding answers, the more dangerous hunting the killer becomes. Could it be someone she knows?
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag Publication year: 2024
Pages: 400
EASY PREY Agnes Lovise Matre
Agnes Lovise Matre (b. 1966) works as a teacher in Haugesund and has previously worked as a freelance journalist. In 2020, Matre was awarded the Silver Dagger Award for the novel Ice Cold.
«Dark, rural crime novel about youth, sex, and drugs […] Agnes Lovise Matre is experiencing great success with her crime novels about the local police chief Bengt Alvsaker in Øystese. The fourth book of the series successfully explores how parents and teenagers live in separate worlds […] a crime novel that rises well above the run-of-the-mill.»
Bergens Tidende
A young boy is found killed in Øystese. At the same time, a fifteen years old girl is reported missing. She failed to return home in the evening, and outside winter storms are raging. Airports and mountain roads are closed. The small town is effectively isolated. The murder investigation and the search for the missing girl has the local police department stretched way too thin. Slowly, a picture is pieced together of a youth environment where young girls sell nudes and vulnerable teenage girls use drugs and hang out with grown men. Chief Inspector Bengt Alvsaker heads an investigation where the leads are hidden away in families where hiding one’s own sins is more important than caring for one’s close ones. Easy Prey is the fourth book in the series about Chief Inspector Bengt Alvsaker.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag Publication year: 2024 Pages: 368 Foreign Sales: Denmark, Straarup & Co
THE CORPSE STONE
Marit Reiersgård
Marit Reiersgård (b. 1965) has trained her hand at writing short stories for ten years, and has published books for children and young adults. Her debut as a crime writer came in 2012 with Tall Snow. In 2014 followed The Girl With No Heart, which got shortlisted for the prestigious Riverton Prize. The Corpse Stone is her fifth crime novel.
Police investigators Bitte Røed and Verner Jacobsen are finally back!
In an apartment in Drammen, a man is found dead, locked in a rose-painted chest from the 19th century. The victim was an avid hunter, and the hunting party he belonged to turns out to have ties to severe environmental crime. The investigation unveils a tragic family story spanning generations. The investigators Bitte Røed and Verner Jacobsen soon glimpse a strong motif and fear that other lives are in danger. Simultaneously, their mutual attraction leads to shame and a sense of guilt, as Verner is married and soon to be a father. It all ends in an ice-cold drama in a tiny town in the Hallingdal valley.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag Publication year: 2024 Pages: 368
TALL SNOW
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2012 Pages: 320
PARADISE HILL
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2016
Pages: 400
THE GIRL WITH NO HEART
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2014 Pages: 336
WHAT THE DEAD KNOW
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 2018
Pages: 320
THE ICE PALACE Tarjei Vesaas
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 Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 1963
Pages: 144
Tarjei Vesaas was a modernist who maintained a degree of technical experimentation throughout his work. He is regarded as one of Scandinavia’s foremost twentieth-century 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.
THE BIRDS 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 understands 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. In 1967, The Birds was made into a film by the Polish director Witold Leszczynski.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 1957
Pages: 208
He 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 short story collection The Winds (Vindane , 1950), he won the Venice Prize in 1953, which resulted in his international break-through. His novels have been translated into 28 languages.
THE ALBERTA TRILOGY Cora Sandel
Alberta and Jacob (1926), the first volume of the trilogy, introduces Alberta Selmer, one of the 20th century’s great antiheroines: 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.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 1926
Pages: 320
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 Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 1931
Pages: 304
«Ahead of her time . . . like Virginia Woolf though much tougher. A classic. » Times Literary Supplement
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.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 1939
Pages: 368
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.
SHAME
Bergljot Hobæk Haff
Shame is a compelling and ambitious tale of suffering and redemption. It tells the story of Idun, a woman who is no less intelligent than her successful twin sister, Kathrine, but a succession of traumatic childhood experiences have condemned her to a life spent mostly in a mental hospital (at her sister's instigation). There, she starts writing about the trials of her own life as well as those of Norway itself: her experiences merge with the German occupation of her country, the shame of collaboration, and the moral and spiritual upheavals of a nation—and a sister—betrayed.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 1996
Pages: 422
The novel is luminous, written with the finest psychological insight and a streak of devastating black comedy.
THE BONFIRE Bergljot Hobæk Haff
“The teacher was exactly as commonplace as a teacher is supposed to be in such a small corner of the world.” Thus begins Hobæk Haff’s modern classic The Bonfire. Though relatively commonplace, the teacher is also different; with her vast knowledge of herbs, she cures her students of several ailments. Over the course of one year, two men arrive in the community: a friendly, taciturn shoemaker and an alluring, dangerous painter. The latter charms the locals and the teacher alike, leaving devastation in his wake. With this highly praised novel, Hobæk Haff distances herself from strict realism, writing a timeless story of the tension between the good and evil sides of human existence.
Publisher: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Publication year: 1962
Pages: 133
Bergljot Hobæk Haff (1925–2016) is considered to be one of Norway’s finest novelists. Her oeuvre consists of 16 novels, all characterized by a clever and original approach to the narrative, poetic inventiveness, as well as wit and wisdom. Hobæk Haff was awarded a number of prestigious literary awards for her books.
