Lars Sasabye Christensen has certainly done well with his new bestselling novel Echoes of the city! So far rights for the book has been sold to Germany and Denmark. In Poland a three-book deal has been signed for the entire planned trilogy. The writer is also nominated to the Norwegian Booksellers Award - we have our fingers crossed!
Echoes of the City is the first book in a planned trilogy. In Norway it has been one of this seasons most bestselling novels.
About the book:
We've all stood on a street corner and let the city's lights and sounds pass by. What do we hear when we listen to the sounds of the city? What traces do they leave in us? Who is at the other end of the line when the phone rings? What story can we deduce from the protocols from Fagerborg's branch of the Red Cross in the post-war years? How do the stories all connect? When someone loses something, someone else finds something different. The city and the streets are the same as before, but the people who emerge in Echoesof the City (Byens spor) have never been seen before.
This is what the press has to say about the novel:
Saabye at his best!
Lars Saabye Christensens writing put you in a good mood, and sometimes make you laugh out loud. But the characteristic vulnerability is strongly present, both in the written sentences and between the lines. Even more so than before. FIVE STARS OUT OF SIX
ADRESSEAVISA
A portrait formulated with the poetic melancholy, so typical to Saabye Christensen when he is at his best. FIVE STARS OUT OF SIX
DAGBLADET
In the references, but maybe foremost in the loaded dialogue between the people in the book, echoes a certain lingual musicality delivered by one of our foremost literary impressionists.
FIVE STARS OUT OF SIX
VG
This is a story that reaches far into the roots of your heart. Warmth, sympathy and the ability ”to live with” characterize this novel, telling the tale of life in Oslo just after WWII.
FIVE OUT OF SIX STARS
FÆDRELANDSVENNEN
Here Saabye Christensen is at his best. May he stay like this for a long time.
NRK
A novel of the kind that does not shout loudly, but is carried by fine personal portraits and wisdom disguised as sparkling gold grains, in turn, consolidating Lars Saabye Christensen's position as Oslo's premier home town poet.
DAGSAVISEN
But it is this he wants to show us; all the details, looks and gestures, all the sensible and human that we are missing out of in our time, with our vision glued to an iPhone. I do not think that I am completely mistaken if I say that the fans, the hard core ones, are going to really love this perspective.
AFTENPOSTEN