Bøger i Norwegian Literature Series serien

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2023Not so much a sequel as an alternate perspective, Jon Fosse's coda to his brilliant and much-lauded Melancholy picks up the story of tormented landscape painter Lars Hertervig in 1902, shortly after his death. Taking place, like Melancholy, over the course of a single day, it treats us to the thoughts of Hertervig's sister, carrying on with her life in the absence of her eccentric brother. She recalls their childhood under a domineering father, remembering Hertervig's difficulties fitting in, and likewise Hertervig the man: poors, always hovering on the brink, fanatical about painting and his own perceived shortcomings as an artist and human being. In the same hypnotic prose for which Fosse is famous, Melancholy II serves as an investigation not only into the "collateral damage" wrought by art and artists, but into a master's tools and obsessions as well.

When seventeen-year-old Aksel Morander encounters Amalie, it proves a turning point in his life. Not only does he fall in love for the first time, but he is introduced to a world unfamiliar and unconventional, which places everything around him in a new light.

Inspector Wold is assigned to a year-old missing person's case. His superiors' instructions are clear: one last review before they shelve it. Nevertheless, when the mother of the 14-year-old missing girl asks to see him, his conscience gets the better of him and he agrees to a meeting; a meeting that has unforseen consequences for both of them.

The second volume in Stig Saeterbakken's loosely connected "S Trilogy," Self-Control moves from the dark portrait of codependent marriage featured in the acclaimed Siamese to a world of solitary loneliness and repression.

Edwin Mortens is almost blind, but has good hearing; his wife Erna is hard of hearing, but has excellent eyes. Paralyzed from the waist down, Edwin sits locked in his bathroom all day, every day, trying to liberate his mind from his body.

Mathea Martinsen has never been good at dealing with other people. After a lifetime, her only real accomplishment is her longevity: everyone she reads about in the obituaries has died younger than she is now. Afraid that her life will be over before anyone knows that she lived, Mathea heads out into the world.

Dentist Karl Meyer's worst nightmare comes true when his son, Ole-Jakob, takes his own life. This tragedy is the springboard for a complex novel posing essential questions about human experience: What does sorrow do to a person? How can one live with the pain of unbearable loss? How far can a man be driven by the grief and despair surrounding the death of a child? A dark and harrowing story, drawing on elements from dreams, fairy tales, and horror stories, the better to explore the mysterious depths of sorrow and love, Through the Night is Stig Saeterbakken at his best.

One of Jon Fosse's most acclaimed novels, Boathouse is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator leading a largely hermit-like existence until he unexpectedly encounters a long-lost childhood friend and his wife. Boathouse slowly unravels the story of a love triangle leading to jealousy, betrayal, and eventually death.

Lou is a French novelist living in London, married to Var, a small-town Norwegian woman. Together they form a couple with rather unusual ideas about marital fidelity. Told in a brisk, economical style, Poppy's novel compellingly explores the complicated matter of needing and seeking intimacy.

Written in an unadorned style, Kjell Askildsen's devastating stories convey in few words life and thought as they are actually experienced, balanced between despair and hope, memories and expectations. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest Norwegian writers of the twentieth century and among the greatest short-story authors of all time.

Icy, intricate, and unflinching, Edy Poppy's Coming. Apart. captures the zeniths and nadirs of the human experience. With the stark, poetic voice that garnered her collection Anatomy. Monotony. cult status in Norway and abroad, the writer-performance artist offers a vision of sexuality and alienation unlike any other. Coming. Apart. is Poppy's first collection of short fiction, and her second to be published in English. Beautifully translated from the original Norwegian by Dr. May-Brit Akerholt, her stories explore moments of labyrinthine intimacy with a cold intensity that proves impossible to forget.