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Negotiating with Reality
Literature and Fiction2020 · 200 pp

Negotiating with Reality

Erlend Loe

“At first, I travelled on four wheels. Then three. Then, for a long time, two. Now: one. A reduction is under way. In the end, in some years’ time – nobody knows how many – I’ll have no wheels. And will return to the earth I’ve loved cycling on. I never would have believed I could do it, but now I fly low across the landscape. My eyes are 220cm above the earth and the trees whizz by. The path beneath me is soft, everything is soft, even if, now and then, it is also stony and uneven. Sometimes it is wet and slippery. Regardless, I must be fully in control, from second to second. An elevation there, a stone, a root, a puddle that may be deeper than it appears to me. I could fall at any moment. But I don’t fall. Because I can fly. But now and then I do fall all the same. Or jump off to avoid falling.” For much of his life, Erlend Loe has cycled. A year ago, he decided to try out a unicycle and was instantly converted. What persuades an almost two-metre tall fifty-year-old who claims not to like standing out from the crowd to cycle through the city on a unicycle? What is so attractive about that? There must be more practical means of transport? With enthusiasm and sharp observational skill, Erlend Loe takes us on a unicycle odyssey over the course of a year – full of free association and playfulness, but always in balance, always leaning forward, always conducting negotiations with reality. And by negotiating with reality, he puts it into words in new and unexpected ways. A riveting personal essay in the vein of On Being John McEnroe and Murakami’s What I Talk about When I Talk about Running.

12…678…2122
Rights soldSold to Serbia and Turkey
I SUGGEST WE WAKE UP
Literature and Fiction2020 · 544 pp

I SUGGEST WE WAKE UP

Beate Grimsrud

A white envelope flies through the air and lands in Vilde Berg's letterbox. She is at a midpoint in her life, and has everything she needs. But the envelope contains a message that will turn her life upside down – she is seriously ill. Exuberant and curious, Vilde has always asked questions about herself and the world, and she has never taken the answers to these questions lightly. When your own life – something you take so for granted – can come to an end, what questions do you ask then? Time now seems both in short supply and drawn out – how long will she have to wait for answers, to hope and to recover? Does she have to hurry and use her time as best she can?Parallel to Vilde's story about wanting to live, are all the stories about Vilde's childhood in the fabled Dovre mountains, where she stole a golden pen from grandfather. From this pen spring tales of a wistful and playful rat longing to be noticed and loved by the fox with the beautiful tail.I Suggest We Wake Up was a new milestone in Beate Grimsrud's career, trembling with raw nerve and wild hopefulness, combined with the author's stubborn energy and distinct sense of humor.WINNER OF THE 2020 BRAGE PRIZE FOR BEST FICTION!The Brage Prize Jury said: This year’s winner of the Brage Prize for Fiction contains everything you could possibly hope to find between the covers of a new book. The winning novel is quite simply a cornucopia of pithy sentences, accurate observations, dizzying philosophical thoughts and wild imagination. The novel has a unique narrative voice which skips back and forth with unexpected leaps of thought and original associations without ever losing sight of reality. The narrative style creates a lively atmosphere and forms a successful contrast to the book’s dark story of cancer. The author has a well-developed sense of humour, and the novel is rich in quick repartees and spontaneous observations, which makes reading it a literary feast. The novel’s central character is diagnosed with cancer, and the depictions of the existential upheavals which follow in the wake of such shocking news are characterised by wisdom and insight. The author writes frankly and without sentiment about the various stages from ill to potentially healthy with a life-affirming attitude that imbues the language with exceptional power. In this ground-breaking novel there are no barriers between reality and fantasy, and it feels completely natural to be joined by a rat and a fox, who discuss the big and small questions in life as the story progresses. We would so have loved the chance to follow this exceptional and imaginative writer for years to come, but sadly it was not to be. And that is why we are especially pleased to announce that I Suggest We Wake Up by Beate Grimsrud, who died earlier this year, is the winner of this year’s Brage Prize for Fiction. The novel is another highpoint from a creative writer whose clever, enduring books deserve a long life. R E V I E W SBeate Grimsrud’s new novel I Suggest We Wake Up is one of the most poignant, strangest and entertaining Norwegian books I’ve read in a very, very long time.(…) a deeply original and meaningful reading experience that you will surely remember for a long time.VERDENS GANG (NORWAY) ******A bold and humorous novel full of adventure and imagination.(…) I am a fan of Beate Grimsrud’s books. Of her imagination, of her thinking, of her humor, which makes the reader wonder and think in new ways.(…) It leaves me mentally out of breath. But it’s worth it.(…) Grimsrud puts into words Vilde’s feelings and reactions through unique images that makes it possible for the reader to live through this heartbreaking story.ADRESSEAVISEN (NORWAY) ******Beate Grimsrud invites you into a linguistic roller coaster ride that makes you scream with joy and horror. Buckle up and read!DAGBLADET (NORWAY) ******(...) a strong and original novel.(...) the story balances elegantly between reality, fairytale, dreams, nightmares, discussions of ecology, aesthetics, politics, friendship, love and difficult mothers.NRK (NORWAY)I Suggest We Wake Up reaches broader and deeper, in the literary and existential sense. In a style that travels the lanes of association in a wise and learned mind, as well as the tangled pathways of a child’s inner thoughts, this novel is in every sense a fabulous report from someone gravely ill, about the dream she carries of continuing to exist.MORGENBLADET (NORWAY)(...) terrifyingly beautiful.(...) It doesn’t get any better than this.DAGSAVISEN (NORWAY)Beate Grimsrud’s novel about cancer is an innovative mix of realism and fairytale.(…) With wisdom and credibility, it describes the existential earthquakes that occur in the wake of getting the shock message: you have cancer.(…) she once again demonstrates exactly how skilled she is at charging events and people with extended significance.BERGENS TIDENDE (NORWAY)(...) The woman with the gold pen.(...) Beate Grimsrud has yet again written a novel without one bad sentence.(...) Each sentence carries content, quivers of excitement, strut of the future or sinks in sadness in the author's search for continuation and connections that create life.(...) Her novels are, this year's novel is no exception, stories that elevate the human condition and its capacity for art and love and pursuit of life and friendship, to a higher level.AFTENPOSTEN (NORWAY)Beate Grimsrud’s new novel is like water for a thirsty throat. DAGENS NYHETER (SWEDEN) Beate Grimsrud has written her best novel to date. SYDSVENSKA DAGBLADET (SWEDEN)I Suggest We Wake Up is an anxiety-ridden, fun, and inviting read, full of airy light and dark depths. VÄSTERBOTTENS-KURIEN (SWEDEN)Grimsrud writes more beautifully than ever. GÖTEBORGS-POSTEN (SWEDEN)The novel has an emotional pressure you just cannot defend yourself against. But you don't want to defend yourself, either, because Beate Grimsrud writes so well. NORRA SKÅNE (SWEDEN)

Rights soldSold to 3 territories
Wolverine
Literature and Fiction2020 · 128 pp

Wolverine

Ida Fjeldbraaten

The main character in the novel Wolverine lives in an institution, working as a cleaner at the city zoo. She has an underdeveloped gaze at the world around her. She is closer to her basic instincts and drives than most of us, and she has to fight herself to restrain the fury and forcefulness raging inside of her. In the Nordic nature area of the zoo, we meet the wolverine. The wolverine is among the most skilled survivors of the animal kingdom, but trapped as the weakest of his pack, the beast within him is cowed. Wolverine is a novel about the animal in humans and the human in animals. The novel examines zoos as a luxury. What happens in a place like this when the society beyond its walls breaks down? Wolverine is a brutal, tender and compelling tale of bodily fluids, jaws, teeth, mud and bites; about nature, culture and about powers that reside in all of us – and can, perhaps, never be reined in.

Rights soldSold to Switzerland
My Chinese Grandmother
Literature and Fiction / Narrative Non-fiction2020 · 176 pp

My Chinese Grandmother

Lars Saabye Christensen

After the first Opium War in 1842, China ceded Hong Kong to the British Empire; after further conflicts and uprisings, the two parties entered into a contract in 1898 whereby the British would lease Hong Kong for 99 years. It is to this British enclave, a trade and seafaring hub, and an international melting pot where East meets West, that Jørgen Christensen travels in 1906. He is on his way to take up a post with Svitzer’s Bjergnings Enterprise. The forward-thinking Copenhagen-based salvage company has set up an office in Hong Kong. A couple of months later, Hulda joins him. Jørgen and Hulda Christensen are Lars Saabye Christensen’s paternal grandfather and grandmother. When his father is on his deathbed, Lars Saabye Christensen asks him about China, and about his grandfather and grandmother’s years in the East. Who were these people he is descended from? What persuaded a young woman from Copenhagen to set out on a long and arduous sea voyage alone? How was their life among the colonials and traders? Lars Saabye Christensen opens up a Chinese box, whose contents are not always what we expect them to be. He has gone through letters and photographs in the possession of his family as well as official documents to painstakingly bring the story to light. In the process, he discovers that the author of fiction cannot help him: in this case, neither imagination nor guesswork can fill in the gaps in the story; he cannot invoke elements that are not already documented in the annals of history. But precisely by remaining true to the documented material, Lars Saabye Christensen sketches a fascinating picture of a time, a family, a couple and an individual, and thereby, also, a compelling picture of our own time – and perhaps also of us and the author himself? «My Chinese Grandmother is a lovely family portrait, as well as a key to the literary universe of Lars Saabye Chistensen. This book is a gem!»VG, six/six stars «Never before has the author written such a penetrating text about his own life, his own family, his own artistry.»STAVANGER AFTENVLAD, six/six stars «Make me understood, asks Saabye Christensen. I am afraid of not being understood, he answers, and he can be completely at ease: he is so definitely understood. Through this concise, precise journey where the grandmother travels from Denmark to China and back to Denmark again via France, and where we gain insight into both her, the rest of the family and Saabye Christensen himself, is both exciting, interesting and at the same time great literature. Truly great literature.»NETTAVISEN, six/six stars «My Chinese Grandmother is a kind of hybrid, a memoir, a family history, a biography and a reflection on the relationship between poetry and reality. But first and foremost, it is a declaration of love to a grandmother he tries to conjure up from the veil of oblivion. It is a heartfelt, beautiful book.»DAGBLADET, five/six stars «With his family history as a compass, Saabye Christensen sets sail and travels east from his safe haven in [Oslo's] western suburbs. He's going far east this time. He's going to find himself on the outer edges of fiction. The result is rich and satisfying.»NRK «The strongest part of the book is the raw descriptions from his father at his deathbed. The most beautiful part is the many questioning investigations in search of the grandparents's history and soul. In both parts he writes with a mix of direct, vulnerable objectivity and a recognisable sense of baroque metaphors.»AFTENPOSTEN «There is much to enjoy in this book. It is marked by exuberance and the joy of writing, but also by sadness over the brutal conditions of life. A small book with great content.»DAGSAVISEN «This little book also proves that Lars Saabye Christensen is an extraordinarily professional storyteller. He has full control of his craft, and of what makes the reader's brain tickle, what makes us read books – can we call it an inner glee?»DN «… the work of a master.»WEEKENDAVISEN (DK «Lars Saabye Christensen’s new book is one you can grow into and keep quoting from, about forgetting, remembering and the passage of time. He himself is perhaps Norway’s most generous and beloved author.»INFORMATION (DK)

Rights soldSold to 3 territories
Never, ever, ever
Literature and Fiction2019 · 224 pp

Never, ever, ever

Linn Strømsborg

«I am 35 years old. I do not want children.It’s not something I talk to other people about. It is something that I am ashamed of, a topic I avoid; take long verbal detours around. When my friends talk about having kids, I change the topic. I do not want to be too certain or unbending, because I might suddenly wake up one day and find that I have become one of them, an ordinary woman in her thirthies wanting to get pregnant, wanting a family, wanting to expand my life, my body and my heart to make room for more than myself. You are allowed to change your mind.»The main character in Linn Strømsborg´s novel Never, ever, ever has never wanted children. She has been living with Philip for eight years, and they have agreed to not have children – up until now. Because maybe Philip might want to become a dad after all? And while her two best friends are expecting their first child, and her mother is constantly nagging about grandchildren, and her everyday life is full of parents with toddlers and births and the struggle of others to have enough time for it all, she is firm in her life and her choice about not having children. Never, ever, ever is a novel about why we have children, and why we do not have children. It is the story about choosing something other than what is expected of you, but at the same time wanting a normal life. NOMINATED TO THE NORWEGIAN BOOKSELLER AWARD Strømsborg explore motherhood through the relation the narrator holds to her own mother, her grandparents and her mothers relationship to her parents. She has interesting perspectives on Motherhood vs. Fatherhood, writes beautifully about growing up and how friendships change once someone has kids. The book is never introverted, but has a narrative driven by good dialogues and storyline. The story is elegantly composed, at times cinematic.Strømsborg has written rare and energized prose about a timely and somewhat taboo topic. ***** VGA thing that is exciting about the book is how it portrays the choice of not having children, both in a longer perspective but also in a somewhat critical period of life. Never, ever, ever shows how existentially gripping it is to see the window closing, and still tell yourself that it is the right thing to do. The novel gets very close on a childless everyday life and future. MORGENBLADET Linn Strømsborg awakens awareness about our family expectations. Her prose is pleasant and touching. KLASSEKAMPENLuckily the novel does not end up being an apology for the voluntarily childless. It is rather existential. And it is good literature. The novel describes exceptionally well the uncertainty of making such a choice, both for those who ends up with a yes and those who ends up with a no. ***** FÆDRELANDSVENNENThe issue is interesting: Why do people become so stressed out over the fact that someone would not want to have children? Never, ever, ever argues that a rich life can be lived in many ways, also without reproduction. DAGSAVISENThis book becomes more a novel the further you read. It turns from a monologue to allowing other people to make the narrative vivid. And the ending is beautiful, if not to say ugly beautiful. Strømsborg has managed to give her protagonist reflections that go beyond her choosing not to have children because there are many bars to visit and festivals to attend. There are also other interesting things to do with your life. Never, ever, ever is also a novel about the importance of friendship, and the acceptance for the choices of your friends - and not getting the same level of acceptance back from the rest of society. It is all heartfelt, tender and important. *****BOK365

Explores the challenges of not wanting children as an adult woman
Rights soldSold to 11 territories
The Mannequin Murder
Literature and Fiction2019 · 128 pp

The Mannequin Murder

Ingvild Schade

The Mannequin Murder is a fascinating and dramatic account from the literary talent Ingvild Schade. It is a beautiful and painful, burlesque and grotesque novel with unexpected twists and turns. Reviewers have compared Schade with Kurt Vonnegut, Mikhail Bulgakov and John Kennedy Toole. Karsten is a meticulous and gaping young boy living in a normal Norwegian family. His father is a doctor and his mother is an English teacher, and his little sister is still in sagging diapers. All objects and events, big or small are subject to Karsten’s intense interest and exploration – whether he is holding a lengthy lecture on the history of stones or gutting a fish for his family’s Tuesday dinner. In the scree behind the stone villa where Karsten lives, seven neighbourhood boys roll loose rocks and point their fingers at him like guns. Lately they have sent him threatening letters signed the ‘The Enemy’. However, Karsten has other things on his mind: In the compost, he has discovered the bloody corpse of a mannequin, and thus he is in full swing interrogating witnesses and filming a dramatization of the murder mystery, with his mother acting in the role of the bloody murder victim. Suddenly one morning Karsten’s father asks him to say goodbye to his childhood home. An overnight bag is packed, and his father says they are leaving for a trip – and everything is set into motion. REVIEWSIngvild Schade is in the process of creating her own literary subgenre.MORGENBLADET The protagonist of Ingvild Schade's delirious new novel has a lot in common with both Patrick Bateman and Holden Caufield. (…) With The Mannequin Murder she confirms her role as a writer who seems totally independent from the current beat and tone of Norwegian literature.DAGENS NÆRINGSLIV To master style in this way is unusual and sorely needed (…) This is a prose cornucopia, a linguistic calorie bomb. You have to read Ingvild Schade. And she needs to write more. Just a friendly suggestion. KLASSEKAMPEN Ingvild Schade follows in the footsteps of Tarjei Vesaas and Ingvar Ambjørnsen, but with a more extreme linguistic skill than them. (…) Ingvild Schade appears as a daring and energetic storyteller. AFTENPOSTEN Breathe in; put away your cell phone and stick to the text, and you are in for an entertaining and peculiar read. The Mannequin Murder delights me, and is so far this year’s greatest literary surprise. DAG OG TID

Rights soldSold to Canada and Denmark
Echoes of the City - The Shadow Book
Literature and Fiction2019 · 544 pp

Echoes of the City - The Shadow Book

Lars Saabye Christensen

Lars Saabye Christensen has put his ear to the conch of the city and listened to the sound within. With finely tuned sensitivity he listens to every detail. He sees the light casting a shadow one way as the sun is setting over the city that was, and the other way over a city waking up to a new time. Inevitably the question arises: Whom are we who are living in this city, this country and this time - and who will we become? At the centre of the third part of Echoes of the City we find Maj Kristoffersen. Her destiny is intimately interwoven with Oslo and its streets; but not as much as the people she shares the city with. First and foremost her children Jesper and Stine, as well as her fellow women of the Red Cross, the invisible social backbone of Fagerborg borough. The children are grown up and times are changing. Hopes and dreams are challenged by a world no longer on track. Growing pains affect them all as new doors open and the old ones close. ‘It is gripping, in some passages glittering. And only a reader with a heart of steel could fail to be deeply moved…’DAGBLADET ‘Lars Saabye Christensen allows himself digressions and diversions in the last novel in his Oslo trilogy Echoes of the City. This sets the three-volume work slightly off-kilter. Just what it takes to make the trilogy necessary. Yes, necessary.’NRK ‘The author serves up metaphors and images that will make the reader cheer.’FÆDRELANDSVENNEN ‘The Shadow Book is a very powerful novel, which stays with you for a long time. And yes, it is a bit funny too.’ADRESSEAVISEN ‘… an emotional roller-coaster’ VG ‘With The Shadow Book, Lars Saabye Christensen has concluded his trilogy in a way that ensures Echoes of the City will stand as a masterpiece in the oeuvre of this soon-to-be 66-year-old Oslo man.’ BOK 365 6/6 ‘Echoes of the City is a vast monument to the past and the present day. …it works, the whole thing. Echoes of the City – The Shadow Book is a brilliant conclusion to the trilogy about Oslo and Norway in the decades after the war.’DAGSAVISEN ‘Lars Saabye Christensen writes warming literature of reminiscence, full of linguistic treats.’ AFTENPOSTEN

Rights soldSold to 3 territories
Circus
UpLit / Literature and Fiction2019 · 320 pp

Circus

Magne Hovden

Funny, elegant and entertaining novel about a traveling circus and a woman's fateful choice. A cynical, self-centered businesswoman inherits a circus and sets out on a journey that introduces her to a world of traditions, dedication and camaraderie that gradually causes her to reevaluate how she'll spend the rest of her life.Sold to Germany, Italy, France and Estonia before it was launched in Norway!Hovden has succeeded in writing a colourful, satirical and catchy novel.DAGBLADETSend in the Clowns! ‘"I would rather shovel Elephant muck!" seems to be the moral of this cross over between Jonas Jonasson’s The Hundred Year Old Who Climed out the Window and Wall Street. In other words likeable and well written entertainment.’STAVANGER AFTENBLAD

Rights soldSold to 4 territories
The Echo of a Friend
Literature and Fiction2019 · 320 pp

The Echo of a Friend

Ingvar Ambjørnsen

Elling is finally back, as vulnerable and funny as ever. He has moved into a basement apartment in Oslo, renting from the widow Annelore Frimann-Clausen. This is Ingvar Ambjørnsen´s fifth book about Elling, and it continues to build on the strong narrative from the previous books. The new book is a beautiful and gripping story about a lonely human being, a story that many can relate to. 'What a comeback!Echo of a Friend is a genuinely funny book, offering a lovely row of shining comic episodes. But just under the cheerful surface there is a tender nerve of something different. For The Echo of a Friend is maybe first and foremost a novel about great and bottomless loneliness. Even if Ambjørnsen manages to add a feeling of redemption to the story, there is no doubt that this story is quite terrible. And terribly good, as well.'VG ****** 'Of course this is a real Elling novel. But the backdrop that Ambjørnsen has drawn up for us also contains deep and striking comments on society of today – you can by all means call it humoristic satire – but Echo of a Friend has a deeper and more serious undertone, describing some of the most pronounced contemporary features of our time.'DAGBLADET ***** 'Elling is back. Almost just as funny, and quite as sad – but even lonelier.The recognition of what Elling is struggling with, finding his place in the world and a dignity in his own life, make Echo of a Friend not only relevant, but yes – important.'ADRESSEAVISA 'Ruthlessly honest return of Elling.The return of now 20 years older Elling in Ingvar Ambjørnsen´s Echo of a Friend is sad, melancholy and at the same time invigoratingly humoristic. As a novel it is a recognizable Ambjørnsen landscape, smartly delivered with a sense for precession and dark humour. It is not an exaggeration to say that Ambjørnsen was at his very best with his books about the lonely, dysfunctional and at times crazy Elling. And he shows us again, 20 years later that he is at the same level. It is a joy to read this new novel.'DAGSAVISEN 'Ingvar Ambjørnsen is back with a new book about Elling – 20 years later. This is a reunion that you do not want to miss.Ingvar Ambjørnsen is back with a new book about Elling – 20 years later. This is a reunion that you do not want to miss. Reading this book on the tram might lead to spontaneous laughter behind the book covers, making you feel a bit like Elling yourself. This is the strength of this author. In a seemingly relaxed way he illuminates the pages with different perspectives of our time, with Elling as a modern day and anxiety filled fairytale hero. We are all Elling. We are all a bit weird. This is the thing that adds depth and nerve to the stories about Elling. Like always, the writing is great. Great images, excellent rhythm and not a single loose sentence. He is light at hand, and builds sentences the way Elling changes moods. When they are good, they are tight and snappy. This book, like they say, brings joy to both old and new readers. I can not wait for the next book, because now Ambjørnsen is on a roll – and so is Elling.'AFTENPOSTEN

Rights soldSold to Norway
Home
Literature and Fiction2019 · 128 pp

Home

Sigbjørn Skåden

2048: A child is born on Home, a previously unknown planet named after the research expedition that established a colony there a few years earlier. The researchers left Earth with the goal of establishing a colony, well aware that they can never return. As researchers, they are willing to take the risk and the psychological strain it entails. But the child's mother is no longer a researcher; she is a mother – and she has plans for her daughter that no one knows about.2147: The descendents of the first people are living on the edge of starvation inside the dome on Home. The animals the first people had brought with them died long ago, they haven't managed to get anything to grow outside the dome walls, and all electronic equipment are outdated and discarded. After a storm, another dome suddenly appears on the landscape. The new people present themselves as having the same motivations as those who came a hundred years before – they speak of hope and community. But when the truth about the inhospitable conditions on Home sink in, another agenda gradually comes to light.

Rights soldSold to France
Hell
Literature and Fiction2019 · 136 pp

Hell

Erlend Loe

Rakel is newly divorced. Her ex-husband’s new girlfriend has a sparkling laugh and bakes her own crispbread. Rakel has to move from her villa into a smaller townhouse. She has custody of her children every other week. With plenty of time on her hands, Rachel decides to tackle her small patch of garden with a rusty shovel she finds in an old shed. Just as she starts digging, she uncovers a hatch that happens to lead straight to Hell. At Hell’s front desk, Rakel buys a stamp card, so she can come back. She also buys nuts to feed Satan, who is Hell’s main attraction. (His favourites are macademias.) When Rakel sees Satan for the first time, their eyes lock, and Satan’s gaze doesn’t let go. It’s a devilish gaze. This journey to the heart of darkness comes with typical Erlend Loe absurdism and lots of dark humor. Illustrated by Kim Hiorthøy. Yours truly had the greatest of times with this book! Loe does not make a batter bigger than what he can beat, but what hell of a cake he is baking! The naïve lines in the illustrations by Kim Hiorthøy suits this absurd and delightful novel that also has a very surprising end. ADRESSEAVISEN, 6/6 STARSLoe is witty and satirical. Childish and wise at the same time. He messes around with stereotypes, standardized language and human weaknesses. Hell can be read as an allegory of life and what happens in the tension between the highs and the (cellar) lows. The book touches the modern feeling of vigour and doubt. Even the Devil - who´s sister is God, who has become so hard to handle that she is "the main problem for evil" - trembles and longs. He is "full of longing" and doubting the whole system. Quite human. Maybe that is why it is so easy to like the novels by Loe. They are fun stories about doubt, weak moments, crisis and contra productive life strategies. The are about life, a topic that matters to most of us. DAGBLADET, 5/6 STARS Charmer in Hell... elegantly illustrated novella about the hustle and bustle of Hell.STAVANGER AFTENBLAD, 5/6 STARS The book pokes at the modern feeling of life and doubt. Even the devil, whose sister is God and so difficult that she has become «the problem of the evil», falters and yearns. He is «full of longing» and calls «the whole system into question». Quite human. Perhaps that is why it's so easy to like Loe's novels. They are fun stories about doubts, weak moments, crises and counterproductive life strategies. They are about life, which affects most people.DAGBLADET 5/6 STARS

Rights soldSold to 4 territories
IDA TAKES CHARGE
Literature and Fiction2019 · 224 pp

IDA TAKES CHARGE

Kjersti Halvorsen

Ida's greatest fear is terror. This doesn't get any better when she meets Aksel at University; a lone wolf with dubious interest in weapons. Aksel has become an outsider, and Ida needs to take drastic measures: How can she save Axel – and the world? Perhaps equally important: How can she save herself?Ida Takes Charge is a dark and funny debut novel about overcoming fear and finding your calling in life.NOMINATED TO THE TARJEI VESAAS DEBUT PRIZE 2019. Brilliant language ... precise and observantThe novel explores, among other things, what can create a breeding ground for loneliness and xenophobia in young boys, which allows them to end up as misogynists, despisers of society - or school shooters. It is well portrayed, and you have to confront yourself with it while reading.DAG OG TID This book is freakishly well written about anxiety in general, and specifically anxiety about terrorismThe peculiar double nature of compulsive disorders, and what is actually reality, is masterfully communicated. The story is a thriller, in the shape of a detective novel where the reader turns the page with great expectations of what revelations they will find on the next page. Ida´s emotions move in waves, between catastrophe thinking and good experiences. Between her thoughts and the events that calms her, and a fear bordering on paranoia. And the reader experiences the waves too, accompanied with the hope that she will find a way out of her anxiety. This is freakishly well written, in content as well as topic and style.ADRESSEAVISA This book is a gem, in many ways a mystery novel. Halvorsen writes with a razor sharp edge about internet stalking, anxiety and fear in general. It is a story about keeping our catastrophe thinking in check, something many of us might need right now.DAGENS NÆRINGSLIV Fear and loathingKjersti Halvorsen strikes a nerve between fear and crippling anxiety. She is good at writing about what is nasty and disgusting. The book has a dark humour in its mellow deadpan way, a humour that suits the anxiety.KLASSEKAMPEN At no point does it become boring. Halvorsen keeps a steady course through the entire novel. During the reading of Ida takes Charge, you will inevitably ask yourself what you would have done in the same situation. How to treat someone who is on the outside of society? It is an excellent debut, character driven, with no need to lean on some meticulous plot to attract the readers.MINERVA The debut of Kjersti Halvorsen is founded on a brilliant idea. Like Elfriede Jelinek or Albert Camus, Kjersti Halvorsen works in uncompromising ways, taking her main characters in extreme directions. She dissects the most problematic sides of contemporary society in a very interesting way, by investigating two damaged twenty-year-olds.STAVANGER AFTENBLAD

Rights soldSold to 3 territories