Anne Cathrine Eng anne.cathrine.eng@gyldendal.no Foreign Rights Director
Nina Pedersen nina.pedersen@gyldendal.no Literary Agent
Kirsti Kristoffersen kirsti.kristoffersen@gyldendal.no Film & TV Rights
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NOVELS // CRIME
THRILLER // GRAPHIC NOVEL
Of course, to outsiders it seems idyllic a little, white-washed cabin, partially concealed by a few clusters of windblown pine trees.
People are stirring in there; the holidaymakers are waking up. Soon this summer morning will be under way, filled with longings and needs, but also with rules and handed-down admonitions. Love and scorn, side by side. Do this, not that; speak like this, not like that; and how do you behave? The rebukes threaten to consume the day. But then it opens up, in the imagination or in life, and something is finally able to happen.
«The woman in The Little Girls wants to be liberated from ghosts, to connect with her daughters in a sincere way; she dreams of genuine intimacy across roles and ages. Perhaps that’s not possible, but you’re still allowed to hope.»
Stavanger AftenbladPublisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
256 pages
Foregin sales: Denamrk, Turbine
«A new example of Monica Isakstuen’s talent for finding ever new, original linguistic disputes on eternally relevant topics.»
Dagsavisen
«Energetic, playful, sore and smart. Thought-provoking. [...] Isakstuen writes with exquisite tempo and rhythm.»
Aftenposten
«The Little Girls is episodic and often cinematic in form, and the language is sharp as Pacific oyster’s shell.»
Fredrikstad BladMonica Isakstuen (b. 1976) made her literary debut in 2009. Her 2014 novel Replay about pianist Joyce Hatto and the greatest fraud in classical music earned rave reviews, with VG naming it “one of the best books of the year”. She won the 2016 Norwegian Book Award Brageprisen for fiction for her novel Be Kind to The Animals. Girls in Trees is her second novel.
An uproarious, devil-may-care, sensuous story of kids who grow up, kids who are hidden, and kids that never existed. It’s a novel of loss and loneliness, but also about the moments of departure and freedom that contain the possibility of a different life.
Aunt Magni is to be buried on the island she comes from. That is her niese’s self-imposed mission. Her aunt’s urn in her luggage, she travels back to the house where she spent the summers of her childhood. Hoping to make amends for old sins, she is confronted with the deceiving squiggles in her family lines, in a landscape where her family have been leading an unfair battle against their lots in life for generations. Searching for closure turns out to be very difficult indeed.
«Masterful.»
Dagbladet
«Girls in Trees is the gripping story of a family, written in a lyrical prose. […] Much is never stated out loud but must be read between the lines. This, too, the author manages masterfully. The result is a gripping and very well-written book.»
Stavanger Aftenblad
«[...] Girls in Trees sticks out from all the rest in this year’s Norwegian book pool, boding well for a continued authorship.»
Klassekampen Bokmagasinet
Publisher: Tiden
Publication year: 2023
288 pages
Heidi Mittun-Kjos (b. 1972) is born and raised in Oslo. She is the creative director of a design agency and has attended Gyldendal’s Academy of Creative Writing. In 2021, she made her debut with the novel Areas of Special Significance. Her second novel, Girls in trees, was published in 2023 to universal critical acclaim.
Into Our Dark House is a story about idealism and reality, good intentions and badly concealed prejudices. About the ability to include and the will to exclude. But also about wishing to belong and the dream of a perfect life.
The idealistic Alice, her husband Kim and their kids move into Kim’s childhood home in Åsgård, a well-to-do neighbourhood in a part of town that is otherwise weighed down with challenges of social inequality. Åsgård has the only well-renowned school in their part of town, and when Veslemøy, Alice and Kim’s daughter, is enrolled there, Alice hopes that the family will get a sense of belonging that she has always missed.
But why is Kim so evasive when meeting people from his past? Why does his and Alice’s teenage son Emil stop showing up at practice? And what, exactly, is it that lurks in the garden at night?
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
288 pages
When changes to the school districts are suggested and Veslemøy is moved to the notorious neighbouring school, the happy façade of the family crumbles. Amongst Åsgårdians, a riot is brewing; dark secrets are revealed; principles will no longer hold. Alice makes a decision she’d never imagined herself making.
Silje Bekeng-Flemmen (b. 1984) is a critic, journalist and assistant editor at Bokmagasinet Klassekampen. This is her second novel.
They Call Me The Wolf is a wise and moving examination of culture, history, family, identity and masculinity.
A man is visiting his father, who is moving to Pakistan. His father doesn’t want to grow old in Norway and his small apartment needs to be emptied.
The chore awakens memories from the man’s own childhood and youth, thoughts about his relationship with his own children, and reflections on his parents’ story – a story that began long before he was born. What are they really leaving behind?
They Call Me the Wolf is a novel about being a man from two countries, about having a mother from Finnmark and a father from Pakistan. It’s about being a parent, about the housing market, and about childhood. And it’s about survival and being hungry like a wolf.
«Outstanding storyteller!»
VG
«… packed with complications and tensions. […] They Call Me the Wolf serves up a lot food for thought – for all of us.»
Stavanger Aftenblad«With his third novel, Zeshan Shakar shows once again how “descriptors” — whether they take the form of language, ignorant prejudices, daily behavior, or politics — shape bodies and lives.»
Morgenbladet
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2022
240 pages
Foreign Sales:
Sweden, Bazar/Bonnier
Denmark, Gutkind
Zeshan Shakar (b. 1982) grew up in Stovner in Oslo. He has a degree in political science and studied economics at BI Norwegian Business School. His debut novel, Our Street (2017), was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas Debutant Prize and has 160 000 copies sold. His second novel, Yellow book, was published in 2020. In 2020, Shakar received the Oslo City Artist’s Prize and Neshornprisen.
They Call Me the Wolf (2022) is his third novel, and was awarded the Booksellers’ Prize.
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
192 pages
Foreign Sales: Serbia, Albatros plus d.o.o Hungary, Typotex
She brimmed with dreams of an international lifestyle of languages, literature and fascinating conversations, and of a happiness in which she could both love and be loved. She’s now 73, living in Warsaw, and in a faltering marriage with a British diplomat. She suffers a stroke which seriously impairs her ability to speak. All she’s left with is the Norwegian of her childhood, which no one around her understands, and far too much time to wonder why life never turned out the way it was meant to.
A Minute’s Silence is a novel about recognition and identity, about which memories live within us and which ones disappear, and about wanting to escape from your own background – and perhaps also from yourself.
«Captivating! [...] Following Cecilie Enger’s writings is a joy, this time she delivers a moving novel with characters we believe in and a story that draws us in. […] well written, well thought through, a fascinating universe well executed.»
«Cecilie Enger’s new novel is well crafted, close and slightly aching […] a pure joy to read. There’s no doubt. Enger’s novel is absolutely worth reading.»
Stavanger Aftenblad«Cecilie Enger turns her phrases with extreme precision and has a knack for fine-tuned nuances.»
Dagbladet
Cecilie Enger (b. 1963) made her debut in 1994 with the novel Necessity, and has published a number of critically acclaimed novels since. For her breakthrough novel Mother’s Gifts (2013), she was nominated to The Booksellers’ Prize and the Critics’ Prize. Cecilie Enger lives in Asker.
As a young woman, Åsta Petersen-Cooper left Norway with a desire to put her former life behind her.
One’s Own Children is about ambitions and disappointments, pretensions and revelations.
It’s June and Anja and her boyfriend Pål are on their way to the smallholding in Sweden that Anja still co-owns with her ex-husband Ivar. It’s going to be a weekend of hard work – the cladding needs to be cleaned and painted. Ivar and his partner Solveig are there too, as are all the children.
One’s Own Children is about ambitions and disappointments, pretensions and revelations. About our search for belonging and meaning, for intoxication and transgression. About children and the power one has – and doesn’t have –over them; about responsibility and a longing for freedom. And about the joy and love that arrives in flashes, almost at random.
«Trude Marstein is a master at creating characters who are mildly unpleasant. The title of her new novel, One’s Own Children, immediately sparks expectations about the conspiratorial cliché ‘my children/other people’s children’. Marstein’s ability to capture modern lifestyle problems – in this case stepchildren and stepparents – is highly relatable.»
Dagbladet
«Superb, relentless family drama. [...] The reader is left on tenterhooks as Trude Marstein gathers the modern family for a weekend of work at their smallholding.» NRK
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2022
336 pages
Foreign Sales: Denmark, Gyldendal
Trude Marstein (b. 1973) was awarded the Critics’ Prize as well as the PO Enquist Prize for Doing Good (2006), which confirmed her prominent position among younger Norwegian authors. Born in 1973, she grew up in the small town Tønsberg on the coast of the Oslofjord. She received the Tarjei Vesaas’ Debutant Prize for Strong Hunger, Sudden Nausea (1998) and has written several novels as well as a book for children and a number of essays.
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
288 Pages
Foregin Sales: Sweden, Bazar/ Bonnier
There’s little love lost between between the three siblings Dyveke, Benedikte and Steffen, and apart from their absent drunk of a father, they have nothing in common either.
But when their father is on his deathbed, the three siblings are torn away from the chaos of their everyday lives and forced to contend with each other.
But are we duty-bound to give care just because we’re family?
And do we spend the rest of our lives searching for what was missing from our childhoods?
Is blood always thicker than water?
That Kind of Family is a life-affirming novel about loyalty and loss, forgiveness and solace – about which truths count when our memories don’t match up.
«That Kind of Family is a funny, humane and tender novel that you ought to prioritize this summer.»
Stavanger Aftenblad«[…] this novel offers plenty of witty exchanges and fun observations to enjoy in the summer heat.»
Dagbladet«It is absolutely wonderful to read Linde’s magical and oh, so relatable little moments in a story for which the tone is immediately set in the wonderful opening sequence.»
Nancy ØvrehusHeidi Linde (b. 1973) has been a rising star since her debut novel Under the Table (2002) made it to the main selection in Norway’s major book club, but her big breakthrough came with her third novel, Yes, We Can! (2011). She is also one of few plot driven women writers to traverse the gender gap; the reviewers obviously see her as a writer for both men and women (and compare her to giants like Nick Hornby and Jonathan Frantzen).
Wiper – a Spotless Detective is a crime comedy about identity struggles and culture clash, a turbulent story of social mobility – mysterious, funny, and with just the right pinch of seriousness.
Wassim’s stain removal expertise, universal keys and Norwegian-Pakistani networks become crucial tools when he becomes entangled in the art and financial elite in Oslo and the hunt for an ancient parrot and a fake Picasso. Was it, in fact, the case that the famous opera singer Jacob Borg took his own life?
«Wiper is packed with ironies and witticisms and throws punches in all directions.»
Dagbladet
«The cleaner Wassim Ali, also known as Wiper, is the voice of this novel. And what a voice![…] a lot to enjoy in Zahid Ali’s debut novel, and he keeps the suspense up until the very last paragraph.»
Dagsavisen
«A highly approved debut that has received more publicity than most first releases.»
Gjengangeren
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
272 pages
Zahid Ali (b. 1976) is a Norwegian comedian of Pakistani origin. He made his debut as a stand-up comedian in 1999, and has since participated as presenter, actor and writer in a number of major film, TV and stage productions. Wiper - a Spotless Detective is his first novel.
The fifth book in the Jomsviking series.
Torstein Herse is back from his campaign in England and has settled in Jomsborg with Sigrid. But there is discord in the air. One day a messenger arrives from Erling Skjalgsson, the man known as the King of Ryge. Olaf Haraldsson, the youngblood who served under the mighty Torkjell Høye in England, is threatening the old chieftains and petty kings and demanding Norway for his realm. The King of Ryge asks for the support of the Jomsvikings in the fight against the new pretender to the throne. But young Olaf’s audacity knows no bounds. Soon Jomsborg itself will come under attack, and a new warrior will ascend to the chieftain’s throne. Torstein will sail north, now accompanied by his eldest son, and witness great, proud men bowing to Olav the Greedy’s might. A rebellion will spring forth where Torstein least expects it – a rebellion that will lay open Olaf’s cruelty and lust for power to the whole world.
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2022
496 pages
The Jomsviking Series is sold to:
Sweden Germany
Netherlands Poland
Russia Denmark
Bulgaria Spain
Hungary
This is the fifth book in the Jomsviking series about Torstein and his family. Here, we are taken into the conflicts surrounding Olaf Haraldsson, later known as Saint Olaf, and we are given an insight into a age when Norway went from being a society with a council of chieftains and local autonomy to a monarchy with centralised power. Through Torstein’s eyes, we see the old days and everything he knows to be good and right coming under threat. At the same time, Torstein himself will threaten Olaf right at the heart of his power – because Torstein wants to retake Vingulmork, the region he was promised dominion over before it was robbed from him.
Bjørn Andreas Bull-Hansen (b. 1972) debuted with his short
From the Western Forest in 1996. Since then, he has written a number of books across a variety of genres. He had his international breakthrough with his novel Jomsviking (2017), which is the first in a sweeping historical series from the Viking Age. Throughout his authorship, Bull Hansen has become known for his gripping stories and powerful tales of human destiny.
The Royal Kidnapping is a furious, feisty and action-packed story about resourcefulness and raw power, but above all else about heroism and boundless fatherly love.
Skaugum, early spring 2023, 4.41 a.m.: four masked men kill the Crown Prince’s bodyguards and abduct his daughter, the next in line to the throne. All of Norway is put on high alert. Evidence soon shows that forces from Russia are behind the kidnapping, and the Norwegian emergency services turn to legendary police detective Frans Nansen. He has grief and a little girl of his own to deal with; since he lost his wife in a fire a few years earlier, he has been battling his inner demons. It isn’t until the Crown Prince himself approaches him as head of state and as a father that Nansen accepts that he must take on this impossible mission: to cross the northern border alone, locate the princess and – most difficult of all – bring her back to Norwegian territory, alive.
«Police investigator Frans Nansen will save Norway’s heir to the throne. The bodies are strewn about! James Bond and Rambo are reduced to Boy Scouts! [...] Crazy and wacky!» The criminal book world
Randaberg24
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
368 pages
Ulrik Høisæther (b. 1982) made his debut as crime author with the crime novel Pokerface, which was soon followed by Clean Hands. He works within finance for the largest bank in Norway.
Into Thin Air is a North Norwegian noir featuring the midnight sun and dark secrets in the depths of winter.
Nineteen-year-old Iselin Hanssen disappears during a run in Bodø’s popular hiking area, and suspicion quickly falls on her boyfriend. For investigator Jakob Weber, the case seems clearcut, almost unexceptional, even though there are tiny, barely visible hints that Iselin lived parts of her life beneath the radar of both family and friends.
However, events take on a whole new meaning when another woman disappears under similar circumstances, this time on Røst, the island furthest out into the wild ocean. Rumours that an unknown killer is on the loose begin to spread, terrifying the local population. Then Jakob discovers that this isn’t the first time young women have vanished without a trace in this region.
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2022
336 pages
Foreign Sales
Netherlands, Uitgeverij Marmer
Into Thin Air is the first book in a crime series from Northern Norway. From the land of darkness and the midnight sun.
«... an atmospheric, exciting and well-executed crime novel.» VG
«Karlsson writes efficiently, which suits both the crime and thriller genres very well, and there is a lot of warm humour and evocative descriptions of nature and characters, all of which act as a much-needed counterbalance to all the gruesomeness. The story has good momentum throughout, and it was difficult to put it down.» Altaposten
«Could someone be so kind as to make this into a TV series? Because the combination of spectacular nature and brutish murder doesn’t come much better than this...»
Avisa NordlandKjerringøy: A hiker arrives at a cabin that isn’t marked on the map. Outside hang six ravens in cages, all in a row. As he approaches, a figure comes towards him, a faceless man.
Down at Kjerringøy’s trading post, Tuva Mjelde and two friends are taking an ice bath. One of them gets stuck in something beneath the water. They manage to pull her free, but something else drifts to the surface: the body of Emilio, Tuva’s former lover. Just a few days later, Tuva is found dead outside her own home.
Around the same time, the young Veronika Paulsen is found dead in a small, damp apartment in Bodø, and someone has attempted to make it look like suicide.
Soon, chief investigator Jakob Weber and former Kripos investigator Noora Yun Sande will come face to face with a wickedness the likes of which they have never before encountered. Kjerringøy’s beautiful wilderness conceals a heart of darkness. Jakob is certain of one thing: if the police don’t find and stop the killer, that individual will kill again.
This is the second book in the series about the investigators Jakob Weber and Noora Yun Sande and their colleagues in Nordland police district.
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
320 pages
Foreign Sales
Netherlands, Uitgeverij Marmer
Ørjan N. Karlsson (b. 1970) grew up in Bodø. A sociologist by trade, he received officer training in the army and has taken part in overseas missions. He has worked in the Defence Ministry and is now a departmental manager in the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection. He has written a large number of thrillers, sci-fi novels and crime novels for adults. Visit the author’s homepage at www.orjankarlsson.com.
«[…] yet another exceedingly successful crime novel from Ørjan N. Karlsson […]»
Avisa Nordland
On an inter-county bus ride headed for Bergen, Varg Veum happens to notice three people at a remote intersection. A few days later, he recognizes one of them under the headline YOUNG MAN MISSING.
The three were due to take part in a demonstration against a fish-farming facility in the tiny village of Solvik north of Bergen. Veum’s natural curiosity leads him to Solvik and the chance discovery of a body in the sea. Is there any connection between the discovery of the body and the death of a journalist who was digging into the fish farm’s operations two years earlier?
How many secrets lay hidden in Solvik, a place where two families are contending for salmon fortunes, and where rumours spread like wildfire?
This is the twentieth novel in the Varg Veum series.
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
320 pages
Foreign Sales
Netherlands, Uitgeverij Marmer
«This is an exquisite crime novel, where darkness and glimmers of light spread side by side, like a common thread throughout the text. […] a superb crime novel, with a chilling plot. Brilliantly penned by one of Norway’s best crime writers.»
Randaberg24«The book stays true to what might be called the Veum genre, and joins the rank of really good crime novels.»
BergensavisenA new crime novel from the experienced hand of Gunnar Staalesen (b. 1947) is always an event in Norway, where he is one of the masters of the genre. His Varg Veum series has been translated in to more than 20 languanges.
One day, the enigmatic Sofie appears at Jakob and Elisabet’s door and introduces herself as Jakob’s younger sister. Jakob and Elisabet have lived under the same roof for fifteen years, and have two children together, but Elisabet has never heard anything about Jakob having a sister. It will soon become apparent that there’s far more that she hasn’t been told.
The arrival of Sofie is the beginning of a chain of fateful events that cause Elisabet’s world to come apart. She is forced to reconsider everything she has believed about Jakob, about her immediate family, and about her own reality. She soon comes to understand that the quest for the truth can have a high price – it could cost her her life.
«Get ready to bite your nails off this razor-sharp whodunnit.»
Randaberg24
«Charming and surprising psychological thriller.»
Stavanger Aftenblad
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
304 pages
Jørgen Brekke (b. 1968) has a background as a literary critic and has worked as a freelance journalist. Brekke made his literary debut with the acclaimed crime novel Where Monsters Dwell in 2011. It is translated into 14 languages. The critically acclaimed follow-ups Dreamless (2012) and The Nature of Man (2013) both feature police investigator Odd Singsaker and his American colleague/girlfriend Felicia Stone.
When the person you’ve had most confidence in turns out to be a stranger ...
Dog Days is a profound crime novel about power and powerlessness in intimate relationships, about violence and manipulation, about what grinds us down and how even our humanity can be put at stake when the ground crumbles beneath our feet.
A little boy is found murdered near a hiking trail in Haugesund. He has been beaten to death with a rock and thrown down a steep slope. The brutality of the violence against the defenceless child shocks even seasoned police officers. Hours and days pass without anyone reporting the boy missing, and despite the fact that police superintendent Gabriel Fjell and his team are working around the clock, they are unable to identify him. Gradually they uncover a story darker, bleaker and more dangerous than anyone could have imagined.
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
352 pages
Foreign sales: Denmark, Straarup & Co
«Painfully thrilling, realistic and highly relevant. »
The criminal book world
«Incredibly well-written. [...] Geir Tangen is nothing short of a brilliant crime writer.[...] Dog days stays thrilling until the very last page.»
Nettavisen
«[...]more of this, please!»
Geir Tangen (b. 1970) is from Øystese in Hardanger but has lived in Haugesund since 1996. He trained as a general education teacher and has worked in lower secondary schools since 1996. He has also worked as a freelance journalist for radio, TV and newspapers since 1990, and writes short stories in addition to his crime novels. In the summer of 2019, he started work on a brand new crime series. The first book, Hour of the Wolf, was published in 2021.
Hverdagsnett
A fourteen-year-old girl is found hanging in the woods. It soon becomes clear that she has been taking part in an online game spreading among the city’s youth – a game in which the final challenge is to take your own life.
For his first assignment as lead investigator, superintendent Gabriel Fjell faces a terrifying task: He has to find whoever is behind the game and, more importantly, prevent more young people from taking their own lives. But when there’s no perpetrator, how can he stop them?
And how can he stop the young when they are intent on hurting themselves?
«Despite my high expectations of Geir Tangen’s new crime novel, I found myself blown away.»
tinesundal.blogspot.com
«A cracking, well-written crime novel that proved one hell of a start to a new year of reading!»
bjornebok.bloggnorge.com
«This book was so hard to put down, and I read it in record time. If you like quivering tension interspersed with descriptions that are rough around the edges, you should definitely read this!»
bokblogger.com
«The author writes with a steady pen. The story is easy to read, without too much ‘irrelevant chit-chat’. This is a new genre for Tangen, and I think he really hits the mark. An excellent book that I recommend without hesitation – but not for the faint of heart!»
hverdagsnett.no
«Tangen has chosen to explore an important subject in this thriller. A topic that remains taboo, despite the fact that waves of suicides sometimes take place at various places around the country.»
medbokogpalett.blogspot.com
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2021
384 pages
Foreign Sales: Denmark, Straarup & Co Italy, Giunti Editore
Publisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
352 pages
Then Edvard Matre makes an appearance in Bergen. He has started working for Kripos’s cold-case group and is investigating an old murder in the Bergen underworld. It begins to dawn on Mikael that he himself could become Matre’s chief suspect.
Honour and Conscience is a book about unknown blood ties and old secrets. Mikael Brenne is forced to dig deep into the darkness within. It’s one thing to brandish terms like guilt and atonement in court when referring to a case you’re solely tied to as a professional. But when it gets personal, it’s something else entirely... This is the tenth book in the critically acclaimed and award-winning series about Bergen lawyer Mikael Brenne.
«I venture to say that this novel is peppered with a touch of Crime and Punishment. Tvedt has masterfully managed to capture a nerve from reality, draw on the great classics, and create his very own story.»
«Honour and Conscience is more complex than most crime novels, and allows for the fact that all people, under certain circumstances, could be capable of committing crimes..»
Chris Tvedt (b. 1954) is an author and a lawyer, who studied literature alongside law at the University of Bergen.
In recent years he has devoted himself to writing full-time.
Tvedt made his debut in 2005 with the crime novel Reasonable Doubt. He has written several books starring the lawyer Mikael Brenne. In 2010, his novel Death’s Circle earned him the Riverton Prize for the year’s best Norwegian crime fiction.
Bergens Tidende
A man is thrown from a fifth-floor balcony in what appears to be just a drunken brawl in a rough part of town. Mikael Brenne takes on the job of defending the accused.
A gripping graphic novel about Alzheimer’s.
A grown-up son’s travel to visit his father, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and put in a care facility, also turns into a journey through memories from his childhood, youth and, eventually, adulthood.
In a shared, associative world of imagination, the son tries to understand and reconcile with his father as well as his past.
Martin Ernstsen’s last graphic novel was the awardwinning adaptation of Knut Hamsun’s Hunger. Now he’s back with a deeply personal story about his father and Alzheimer’s disease.
«In his new graphic novel, Martin Ernstsen has managed to draw on all the narrative possibilities dementia lends itself to. The result is deeply moving.»
Roy Søbstad, Empirix«But who are you? is a graphic novel for everyone who has experienced the loss of someone close to them to a slow death like dementia, or who wants to prepare for the fact that this is something that might happen down the line.»
Dagens NæringslivPublisher: Gyldendal
Publication year: 2023
144 pages
Martin Ernstsen (b. 1982) has a bachelor degree in illustration from the UK, and a master degree in Storytelling from Konstfack University in Stockholm, Sweden. He made his debut in 2007, and has since then produced several comic albums and books, amongst them the thriller Fugløya (2009) and the panoramic animal fable Kodok’s Run (2011). Some of his books have been translated to other languages, such as Swedish, Polish, Finnish and Danish, and his book Eremitt won an award for the year’s most beautiful comic book in Norway in 2012. Along with his own comic publications, he has also contributed to several comics anthologies internationally, and he has self-published a number of comics fanzines. He is also working as a children’s book author and illustrator.
Unn walks too far into the frozen waterfall, and throughout one long winter, Siss fights the frost of her own mind. The girls feel early on that there are ties between them that they can’t explain. They are two of one, and one in two.
This is a novel about awakening emotions, about being alone and feeling like a stranger in the world, about being a child and standing on the threshold of an adult consciousness, and about the dark borderland of the mind where numerous forces, dreams ands desires struggle for power.
The Ice Palace (1963) won the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1964, and represents Tarjei Vesaas at the peak of his creative powers.
Publisher: Gyldendal144 pages
Tarjei Vesaas was a modernist who maintained a degree of technical experimentation throughout his work. He is regarded as one of Scandinavia’s foremost twentiethcentury writers and was the first Norwegian to win the Nordic Council Literature Prize.
Tarjei Vesaas was born on a farm in Vinje in 1897. He was the oldest of three sons, and as the oldest he was entitled to inherit the farm. But Vesaas understood early that he was set out to become a writer. He started writing poems and articles for newspapers at the age of 23. The year after, he won a prize for one of his poems, which led him to send some of his work to a publisher. For his short story collection The Winds (Vindane, 1950), he won the Venice Prize in 1953, which resulted in his international break-through. In 1964, he became the first Norwegian to receive the Nordic Council Literature Prize.
His novels have been translated into 28 languages.
an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years.
The Birds (1957) might be Tarjei Vesaas’ masterpiece. No other character has been portrayed with as much care and empathy as Mattis. Helpless in everyday life and useless as a worker, Mattis, in some ways, still understands more than the sharper ones.
Nature reveals secrets to Mattis. He can decipher the language of birds. He can read the letters that the woodcock writers to him with its beak and feet. And he can articulate the deepest questions of life: Why are things the way they are? he asks the friendly farmer’s wife who offers him coffee when he has again failed in doing the work he has been asked to do.
No-one can offer any answers, but the author tells the story in such a way that the reader comes to share his empathy for Mattis, while still understanding Mattis’ sister Hege and all those who want to help Mattis, but who can’t reach all the way in to him.
In 1967, The Birds was made into a film by the Polish director Witold Leszczynski.
Publisher: Gyldendal
208 pages
An everlasting existential study of solitude, proving that a fool may ask more questions in
Cora Sandel’s books about Alberta thematize longing for freedom and a woman’s yearning to carve out a room of her own in the early 20th century. The trilogy has remained one of the most powerful and vivid portrayals of a woman in World literature. Through their resounding humanity, the books belong amongst the great, timeless classics. One of their greatest qualities is how they invite immersion. Through almost a century, countless readers have identified themselves with Alberta.
Alberta and Jacob is the first book in Cora Sandel’s Alberta trilogy, a trilogy that is considered one of Norwegian literature’s most central works. The novel portrays Alberta’s life in a conservative family of the patriciate in Northern Norway in the early 1900s. She is surrounded by small-town gossip, bourgeois conventions, and a family in a constant state of conflict; and she excels neither in beauty nor articulate speech. However, she possesses a strength and an integrity that helps her seek out glimmers of hope in a cold environment and connect her to her creativity. The story of Alberta is a masterful psychological portrait, depicted with warmth, insightfulness, and a dry sense of irony.
Cora Sandel (1880–1974) is highly regarded nationally and internationally as a unique voice in Norwegian literature. With the Alberta trilogy, published between 1926 and 1939, she cemented her position as one of our finest novelists. Born Sara Fabricius in Christiania (now Oslo) and raised in Tromsø, Sandel left home to pursue a career as a painter, living in France and Italy (mainly Paris) for 15 years. Short on money, she started submitting travel letters and short stories to various Norwegian newspapers to scrape a living. One of these stories piqued the interest of the publishing director at Gyldendal, who encouraged her to write a novel. When Alberta and Jacob was published under a pseudonym in 1926, Sandel was 46, recently divorced, and living in Sweden with her young son. The novel was an immediate success, and sold surprisingly well for a debut, making it possible for Sandel to earn a living from her writing.
trilogy has remained one of the most powerful and vivid portrayals of a woman in World literature.«A masterpiece» OBSERVER
Alberta and Freedom, the second novel of the Alberta trilogy, is set in Paris, where Alberta has lived for seven years. The contrast between the international, artistic milieu in Montparnasse and Albertas small, Northern-Norwegian hometown is stark. Still, Alberta is at the heart of the text; we see the world through her senses and experiences, keeping the interconnecting lines to her past ever present. The wild, open landscapes of her youth are replaced by meandering walks through Parisian streets, where Alberta absorbs all the impressions of big city life. Through the year-long span of the novel, her experiences in the present as well as the past brings her closer to her realization as an artist.
In the last novel of the Alberta trilogy, Alberta Alone, Alberta is the mother of a five-year-old boy, surrounded by friends in a summer dwelling in Bretagne. What was intended as an idyllic retreat, quickly develops into a mellow, emotionally charged chamber play. Alberta’s struggle to complete her art project runs like a connecting line through the book. At the same time, this is a love story, exploring the conflict between motherhood, love and self-realization, all set against the backdrop of interwar France, where the anti-German movement is building.
«She has a place to herself among the finest contemporary writing.»
Guardian
«Ahead of her time . . . like Virginia Woolf though much tougher. A classic. »
Times Literary Supplement
«She writes in a low key, with exact domestic detail, unhurried, lucid and sure. The picture she builds up is unforgettable.»
Daily Telegraph
«On all levels it is a pleasure to read.» OBSERVER
Anne Cathrine Eng anne.cathrine.eng@gyldendal.no Foreign Rights Director
Nina Pedersen nina.pedersen@gyldendal.no Literary Agent
Kirsti Kristoffersen kirsti.kristoffersen@gyldendal.no Film & TV Rights
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