Literature and Fiction · Hardback

The Trophy Room

Norwegian title: Omagiu

Ion Pauker is the son of a master glassmaker in a small village. His journey through life coincides with the emergence of the new regime. Like his peers, Ion Pauker is drawn to what is new. He proves to be adaptable and ends up in the People's Palace, responsible for the Omagiu room - the place where all official medals and orders are kept. There are many trophies to look after, and strict guidelines for which medals to display at different occasions. But there will come a time when the medals and their supervisor cease to serve a purpose.

The Trophy Room takes place in a bizarre regime of the past. The novel also serves as a mirror being held up to our world of today, with its authoritarian tendencies and desire for strong leaders. Under such a regime, what happens to people’s humanity? What happens to citizens when their minds are controlled, and "truth" is nothing but a means to keep that control? Where does one draw the line between survival and treason?

And under these contidions, it even possible to be a good person?

«The Trophy Room is both an eerie portrait of the autoritarian's mentality, and a refreshing renewal of a long and important authorship.»VG, five/six stars

«The book has obvious hints to Franz Kafka»Dag og Natt

«... a touching and uncomfortable portrait of a person in a dictatorship's violence.»Dagsavisen

«Lars Saabye Christensen surprises and impresses – again.»Nettavisen

«Lars Saabye Christensen's take on 1984—a George Orwellian dystopia carried by an atmosphere somewhere between The Handmaid's Tale and South Korea's Squid Game.(...) It is chilling! (...) Saabye revels in an eeriness that mirrors our own rampant newspeak.»Politiken

"The Tropy Room is not a comfortable novel, but it is sharp. It works best as a sort of political fable about power, obedience, and moral decay. It is a book that does not seek so much to entertain as to unsettle—and to make the reader consider where the line is drawn between adapting and giving up."Kulturkappellet

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