Literature and Fiction2001
The Half Brother
Lars Saabye Christensen
The Half Brother (Halvbroren) is a novel about two brothers that are struggling to become whole individuals. Both the critic’s and the audience have been acclaiming this great novel. The sale figures in Norway are approximately 300,000 copies. The Half Brother has received a number of prizes and awards, and has been filmed as a TV-series by NRK (The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation).
'Imagine if Saabye Christensen had grown up on Manhattan’s East Side. We’d be talking about a world-class best-seller.' VG
'A wonder of a novel. As a Bildungsroman and a childhood narrative it is a gem. ... It is by no means an inaccessible book, yet it runs deep. So deep, in fact, that it would be impossible to reflect all the psychological layering in a review beyond referring samples of the rich, refined textual tapestry.'AFTENPOSTEN
'A Divine Comedy. A tragic comedy-cum-family chronicle of great proportions, beautifully crafted, Hamsunesque in its approach.'DAGBLADET
Foreign press:
'This is a great river of a book. The phrase came spontaneously as I was irresistibly carried along the flow. The Half Brother is magnificent. .. The Half Brother is like Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions meeting Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections.' THE INDEPENDENT, UK
'The Half Brother is no mere interesting example of contemporary Scandinavian writing; it's a deeply felt, intricately worked and intellectually searching work of absolutely international importance.'THE GUARDIAN, UK
'The Half Brother is the kind of big ambitious panoramic novel of the sort we tend to think only Americans write these days. It is part Bildungsroman - depicting the coming of age of a writer - part a Ulysses for Oslo. ... A big rewarding read.'DAILY TELEGRAPH, UK
'…this magnificent book, which won the Scandinavian equivalent of the Booker in 2002, should win him international recognition.'TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, UK
'Christensen’s intense saga (with intermitted echoes of such ambitious predecessors as Grass’ The Tin Drum and Michael Tournier’s The Ogre) is both an arduous read … and a thrilling and stimulating black comedy that shows, unforgettably, how art and understanding are shaped out of pain and suffering.'KIRKUS REVIEW, US
'The Half Brother is a great literary achievement.'GÖTEBORGSPOSTEN, Sweden
'It is cruel, humorous and bizarre at the same time, and the language is fluent.'SYDSVENSKA DAGBLADET, Sweden
'The Half Brother is a literary master piece. It grips the reader deeply inthe heart and the brain.'JYLLANDSPOSTEN, Denmark
'The novel is quite a magic suitcase... in a huge prose...'INFORMATION, Denmark
'It will take a long time before you can overcome to read something else and not being drowned by the sound of Saabye.'MORGENPOSTEN, Denmark
'A sparkling masterpiece. This novel seems to be written in one energetic stream of power… Like a camera that slides from image to image, zooming in, moving back and forth and on again, that's the way Christensen writes… The Half Brother is a novel with an brilliant, amazing force.' NRC-HANDELSBLAD, The Netherlands
'Whoever reads The Half Brother, will wonder: for heavens sake, why didn't anybody tell me about this writer before? … The structure of the book is like a film scenario, with an extremely compelling, musical rhythm.' HP/DE TIJ, The Netherlands
