Will and Testament (Innbundet)

Author:

Vigdis Hjorth

Norwegian title: Arv og miljø
Author:
Binding: Innbundet
Year: 2016
Pages: 352
Publisher: Cappelen Damm
Språk: Bokmål
ISBN/EAN: 9788202512736
Kategori: Literature and Fiction
Overview Arv og miljø

Vigdis Hjorth's new novel starts as a classic story of inheritance, centred on two summer cabins on Hvaler. Two children have been looking after the place and their parents for many years. They are due to inherit the cabins. But there are two other children, who have partly broken away from the family. How do they fit into the inheritance dispute?

During the inheritance discussions another story emerges which brings violent forces into play. It's all about family history.

Will and Testament is a powerful novel, which certainly created great debate when it was first published in 2016.

WINNER OF THE NORWEGIAN BOOK SELLERS AWARD AND THE NORWEGIAN CRITICS AWARD IN 2016.

LONGLISTED FOR THE US NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE IN 2019

NOMINATED TO THE NORDIC COUNCILS LITERATURE PRIZE 2016.

Press reviews Abroad:

Will and Testament is a compulsively readable novel, one that turns questions of shame into weapons against silence.
Paris Review

Hypnotic.
New York Times Book Review

Like Knausgaard, Hjorth is writing against repression, against the taboo on telling things as they really are. But he urges us to look at dead bodies; she forces us to regard bleeding souls. Hjorth seems to have formulated from her experiments with living models a model for living, in which exposure—of the self and of others—serves a larger purpose.
New Yorker

Hjorth’s thoughtful, drily funny, and often devastating novel will leave a deep and lasting impression on readers.
Publishers Weekly

Will and Testament is a reminder that it’s easier to hide darkness than face it ... Hjorth argues cogently that conflicts and atrocities often stem from what a nation represses or denies.
Observer

In a ruthless yet patiently delivered work, Hjorth does something that few writers achieve: Will and Testament is both economical and overwhelming.
Financial Times

An extraordinary book. ... Hjorth’s precision, on the other hand, becomes a quietly devastating mimicry of the effects of trauma, and of ambiguous and conflicting memories, on a human being.
New Statesman

In this unappealing but compelling book, Hjorth proves brilliant at revealing the stubborn, unredemptive quality of childhood suffering.
THE GUARDIAN

Devastating.
FRIEZE

The strength of the novel lies in Bergljot’s convincing and continuing vulnerability, in her mixed feelings and her flaws … A clear-eyed and convincing story of a family’s doomed attempt to reconcile and the limits of forgiveness.
KIRKUS

Vigdis Hjorth is one of my favorite contemporary writers.
SHEILA HETI, AUTHOR OF MOTHERHOOD AND HOW SHOULD A PERSON BE?

Press reviews from Norway:
Only Vigdis Hjorth is able to handle a serious topic in such a strong, intelligent and poetic way.
DAGBLADET

Vigdis Hjorth has written her best novel; about a sexual assault that destroys all the relationships in a family… Vigdis Hjorth writes about the conflicts that build up in an authentic, everyday language - but something quivers between the lines. There is an energy, a level of suspense in the story that only exists when something is really at stake.
ADRESSEAVISEN

The way Vigdis Hjorth writes takes us straight into the lives and life choices that most people recognize around us and within us.
VG

Vigdis Hjorth’s new novel is furious and wise, trembling and stringent.
NRK

Hjorth dispenses secrets with Ibsen-like precision, so that the level of suspense is maintained up to the very last of the 343 pages.
AFTENPOSTEN

Vigdis Horth’s new novel, about heritage and the guilt in all words’ meaning, is abhorrent. But good… “Will and Testament” is a hopeless book about a desperate yearning for justice. Definitely interesting, extremely well written, and with well-portioned suspense. But dark, without the humorous oblique glance that tends to be Hjorth’s trademark. “I didn’t know how it was to be a healthy person, an unharmed person, I had no experience other than my own."
DAGSAVISEN

Press Reviews Scandinavia:
Thematically really interesting. Psychologically believable and contesting.
WEEKENDAVISEN, Denmark

Vigdis Hjorths outstanding and trembling novel about a family settlement is not the story about money. It is a story about feelings and family dynamics. *****
POLITIKEN, Denmark

One of the good angles of the book is that Bergljot, despite being a victim, is not depicted as an angel. *****
BERLINGSKE TIDENDE, Denmark

Wills and Testaments could have been a heavy and sorrowful book, but that is not the way Hjorth writes. Paradoxically it is actually quite funny, for Vigdis Hjorth never lets her characters off easy. And Bergljot is not a person that treads elegantly into the room.*****
KRISTELIG DAGBLAD, Denmark

Will and testament is a very strong and thought provoking story about a person that has to give up reconciliation to save herself.*****
NORDJYSKE, Denmark

Will and Testament is a continuously engaging novel that can’t be forgotten once you’ve read it. It could be described as an explosion – but a completely controlled one. It continues to ache within the reader, like when an irrefutable and heartrending experience has been fully formed.
SYDSVENSKAN, Sweden

When I closed Norwegian Vigdis Hjorth’s novel Will and Testament, I was both exhausted and elated at the same time. It’s the kind of text that leaves me feeling that this was exactly how it should have been written – with this language, in this form. /.../ And what a skilled writer she is, Vigdis Hjorth!
SVENSKA DAGBLADET, Sweden

It is dark and dreary, but also highly entertaining and witty. Vigdis Hjorth is a fantastic narrator with a strong sense of forward-movement and clear language, which Ninni Holmqvist has contributed to with her smooth and perceptive translation. The characters are complex; they waver, change their minds, and send mixed signals.
GEFLE DAGBALD, Sweden

Its strong emotional truths take hold of you immediately – even before the family secret’s consequences are made apparent: I do geared page after page to mark off insights, movements, formulations.
DAGENS NYHETER, Sweden

Will and Testament is an extremely well-written novel, a novel with a sort of tactile feeling – if a novel can have that. I myself scribbled in pencil in the book: painterlike, colloquial flow, feverishness, psychoanalysis, among other descriptions. Because Vigdis Hjorth works with rhythm. She has chapters that can only be two lines. She writes as if with a paintbrush when she is capturing the weather or a place.
KULTURNYTT I PL, Sweden

The novel, exciting as a detective story in its furious, emotional flashbacks, is a formidable showdown between an upper-class family whose exterior, reputation, possessions, symbols of wealth and lifestyle are more important than anything else.
AFTONBLADET, Sweden

The story’s themes of inheritance, family secrecy and the right to one’s own experiences are striking – whether they are true or not. Equally striking is Hjorth’s prose. /.../ A drama whose different characters many people can recognize themselves in, no matter which traumas – great or small – you might bear.
BORÅS TIDNING, Sweden

Will and Testament is primarily a novel about the inner process. Bergljot’s state of mind is illustrated with a breathless, linguistic rhythm that is deftly translated by Ninni Holmqvist. /.../ It is agonizing that life’s difficult situations can’t always be sorted out, nor can the damage be forgotten. Hjorth’s novel is truthful because it expresses why this can’t always be done. And none of the reasons can be found in the author’s biography, no matter how it might look.
GÖTEBORGS-POSTEN, Sweden

Will and Testament is a strong novel. But not because of sensitive revelations, but thanks to the portrait that emerges of the slightly alcoholic Bergljot. A person who practices self-taught self-therapy and who truly seems to balance on the edge of reality.
ARBETARBLADET, Sweden

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More books by Vigdis Hjorth:

Reviews Arv og miljø

«Vigdis Hjorth gjør livet mindre ensomt med bøkene sine»

 
Silje M. Stavrum Norevik, Bergens Tidende

Skarpt om konsekvensene av å leve med overgrep

"Jeg føler meg i alle fall mindre ensom av å lese Vigdis Hjorth sine romaner, fordi hun så ofte viser frem det skjøre og vaklevorne i karakterene sine (...)"

 
Silje M. Stavrum Norevik, Bergens Tidende

Ubehagelig roman fra en av de beste

"Arv og miljø» gjør ikke skam på at Hjorth er en av de beste forfatterne her til lands."

 
Kathleen Rani Hagen, Fædrelandsvennen

"Bare Vigdis Hjorth klarer å behandle et tungt tema på en så stram, intelligent og poetisk måte."

 
Cathrine Krøger, Dagbladet

"Vigdis Hjorth har skrevet sin sterkeste roman; om et seksuelt overgrep som ødelegger alle relasjoner i en familie... Vigdis Hjorth skriver om konfliktene som rulles opp på et tilforlatelig, hverdagslig språk, men det dirrer mellom linjene. Det ligger en energi, et spenningsnivå, i fortellingen som bare er der når noe virkelig står på spill."

 
Ole Jacob Hoel, Adresseavisen

"Som hun kan skrive, Vigdis Hjorth, rett inn i liv og livsvalg de fleste gjenkjenner rundt oss og i oss."

 
Guri Hjeltnes, VG

"Vigdis Hjorths nye roman er brennbart materiale i ei sterk litterær form.(...)Vigdis Hjorth har skapt ei sterk litterær form til eit svært ømtåleg tema. Alt i Arv og miljø indikerer at Hjorth går dit det brenn."

Margunn Vikingstad, Morgenbladet

"«Arv og miljø» er blant de beste bøkene Vigdis Hjorth har utgitt. Romanens litterære intensitet kan måle seg med «Om bare» (2001), dens sosiale og psykologiske dybdeboring med «Snakk til meg» (2010).(...)Hjorths forfatterskap vil bli stående som referanseverk for å forstå nære relasjoner mellom mennesker omkring årtusenskiftet.(...)Et riktig liv, i absolutt forstand, finnes ikke. Men jeg kan vanskelig tenke meg bedre lykter enn Vigdis Hjorths romaner, hvis man leter."

Tom Egil Hverven, Klassekampen

"Teksten er følelsesmessig intens og rasende, skrevet med hjerte­blod og energi. Romanen er et foreløpig høydepunkt i et forfatterskap som stadig blir mer aktuelt. Kanskje blir romanen høstens viktigste."

Astrid Fosvold, Vårt Land

"Vigdis Hjorths nye roman er rasende og klok, skjelvende og stringent."

Anne Cathrine Straume, NRK

"Hjorth utporsjonerer hemmelighetene med ibsensk presisjon, slik at spenningsnivået opprettholdes til den siste av de 343 sidene."

Ingunn Økland, Aftenposten

"Vigdis Hjorths nye roman, om arv og skyld i alle ordenes betydninger, er fæl. Men god...«Arv og miljø» er en fortvilet bok, om en desperat higen etter rettferdighet. Definitivt interessant, ytterst velskrevet og med fint utporsjonert spenning. Men mørk, uten det humoristiske skråblikket som pleier å være Hjorths varemerke. «Jeg visst ikke hvordan det var å være et sunt menneske, et uskadd menneske, jeg hadde ikke annen erfaring enn min egen»."

Gerd Elin Stava Sandve, Dagsavisen

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Author Vigdis Hjorth

Vigdis Hjorth (1959–) has made an exciting literary career and has written many popular books for both children and adults. Today she is an awardwinning author and one of Norway's most interesting, contemporary writers.

She has won a number of prizes and awards, amongst them: The Gyldendal Prize in 2011, the Critics Award in 2012, The Honorary Brage Award and the Amalie Skram Award in 2014, The Aschehoug Award in 2015 and the Booksellers Prize in 2016.

Her books have been published in 30 countries.

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Foreign rights
Albania
Azerbaijan
Brazil
Bulgaria
Croatia
Denmark
Egypt
Estonia
Faroe Islands
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Lithuania
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Republic Of Korea
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Spain
Sweden
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States

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