Overlord (Innbundet)

Author:

Torkil Damhaug

Norwegian title: Overlord
Author:
Binding: Innbundet
Year: 2006
Pages: 336
Publisher: Cappelen Damm
Språk: Bokmål
ISBN/EAN: 9788202263690
Overview Overlord

The German lieutenant, Peter Enge, deserts in June 1944 just as the allied troops are landing in Normandy in Operation Overlord. He deserted because he has met a French woman with whom he is in love. But during his escape he encounters obstacles that he had not foreseen. He becomes seriously injured and is kept in French captivity. Fifty years later a Norwegian author is finishing a story about the German soldier. A grandchild of the French woman searches him out, and he works through what happened, both in his dreams and in his imagination. He gets to find out about the German’s growing up in Germany, with a father who admires Hitler and a mother who is in love with a Jewish writer. Young Peter is devastated by the stories and ideas the adults give him, and is drawn towards a picture of a black sun about to swallow a yellow one, and he feels forces inside him that favour evil.

Overlord is a novel about being guilty and the sense of guilt, which moves on an individual, collective and metaphysical level. It is very similar to a crime story, but it is perhaps more of a love story which never gets completely told.

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Author Torkil Damhaug

Torkil Damhaug (b. 1958) has a degree in medicine with a specialization in psychiatry. His debut novel, Flee, Moon, caused a great stir when it appeared in 1996. His Norwegian and international breakthrough came with the psychological thriller Death by Water in 2009. The novel has since been optioned for a movie. He has been awarded the Riverton Prize for the novel Fireraiser in 2011, A Fifth Season in 2016 and Dog without a Grave in 2022, making him the only author to receive the prize thrice.

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