Literature and Fiction · Hardback

The Second Heart

Norwegian title: Det nye hjertet

Ida Hegazi Høyer

The Second Heart is a warm and honest story about being someone's next of kin – about alienation and longing for freedom.

Ever since she was a child, she has been preparing for her father's weak heart to stop. She doesn't want to be there when it happens, but she's also afraid every time he leaves the house, or the country. Ever since she was a child, she has thought don't go don't go don't go. Her Egyptian father almost dies, time and time again. And when she has become an adult, he needs her in new ways.

What responsibility do you have as a child, as offspring? Father and daughter travel between different countries, and swivel between closeness and distance. Does it have to do with their cultures, Egyptian and Norwegian, or is it who they are?

«Unlike many books based on the author's own life, The Second Heart actually has something important to say. The result is a reflective and moving story about a father-daughter relationship (...) Analytical and inquisitive, the author creates a nuanced portrait of a complicated man. (...) Precisely this dual movement – between closeness and distance, tenderness and resistance – elevates the book from an ordinary portrait to a work of insightful prose, drawing its threads together towards the end. With The Second Heart, Ida Hegazi Høyer has written a moving account of responsibility, belonging, and loving an imperfect human being. It's damn well done!»VG , five/six stars

«... a powerful, brave, and reflective narrative about the relationship between a father and a daughter. [...] Sometimes, narratives can emerge that both illuminate and surprise us about these complicated and difficult relationships we call family.»DAGSAVISEN

«The Second Heart shows the interaction between two people who need a certain mixture of distance and closeness to one another. It shows what it means to experience being a child and then become a parent oneself. I think that is what makes this book both necessary and disturbingly powerful.»VÅRT LAND

«The Second Heart is at times deeply personal and unflinchingly revealing, bordering closely on the painful and rootlessness. This makes the book's descriptions of the tender and intimate aspects of the father-daughter relationship carry even more weight, and reinforces its credibility as a project of personal reckoning within Ida Hegazi Høyer's own emotional core.»KLASSEKAMPEN