NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER Archives - Norgesklubben Sveits

Yohan Shanmugaratnam – We still breathe//Vi puster fortsatt

This book is a time capsule. About racism and roots and the transformation both me and Norway have gone through over the last decades. From 9/11 to the right-wing terrorism of Anders Breivik at Utøya in 2011, to the killing of George Floyd. It’s also a story about forbidden love, friendship and hope. Do whatever you want with it. The rest is up to you.

‘In a genuine, funny and thought-provoking story about his family’s life, Yohan Shanmugaratnam connects his own multicultural experiences in Sri Lanka, Japan and Norway to overreaching world events. Through exploring the complexity in a multicultural upbringing, Shanmugaratnam reveals that being “the other” is always a product of the broader surroundings.’

– Zeshan Shakar, writer

‘A short masterpiece on racism.’

– Hilde Østby, writer

Manifest forlag 2020
123 Pages
ISBN: 9788283421071 English sample translation available

13 september 2023/by Berith

Siri Helle – Coming Home // Trollefossvegen 23

Diverse, NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER

Siri Helle had long dreamed of her own potatoes and vegetables, trees and animals, but purchase contracts, bank loans, and the prospect of seeing only the same view every day scared her. As an adult, she has moved more than 30 times.

But one day, Siri Helle takes the big leap and moves back home to the village where she grew up. She and her husband buy a house, an outbuilding, and almost two acres of land in a clustered garden. She plans on living here forever. But can she find peace?

Siri gives herself one year. One year to find out if she fits this life, if she can say she is satisfied with having moved back to her home village. She carves, grows, hunts, fishes, and makes two- and four-legged friends. Her feelings range from dark despair to flashes of ecstatic happiness. This is a story about a home and about the joy of work, but it is also a love story. It is about being two people working together on a tremendous project. What new possibilities open when you close all doors except one?

‘This is a delightful and timely book about resilience and environmental care (…) This story of ingenuity and determination is an inspirational read for anyone keen to explore how they can live a more self-sufficient life’. – Clare Hunter, author of Threads of Life, About Handmade

‘If you’re only going to read one book this year about re-establishing yourself in the village where you grew up, it has to be this one. (…) All of these trendy terms – sustainability, locally sourced, recyling, circular economy, and so on – are all tested here on a very specific Western Norwegian reality.’

– NRK

26 august 2023/by Berith

Photo: Erika Hebbert

Zeshan Shakar – They Call me the Wolf // De kaller meg ulven

NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER

Aren’t they supposed to have more, I remember thinking. They were from here after all, Norwegian-Norwegians – shouldn’t they own stuff? All the stuff I saw other people’s parents and grandparents owning. Shouldn’t they have the same stuff? Not even a cabin? At least one without any electricity or water in a place where no one else wants a cabin, like in the middle of the woods. They didn’t even have that. I asked my mother about it. She looked annoyed. All she said was, ‘That’s just how it turned out.’

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 wise and moving examination of culture, history, family, identity and masculinity. It’s 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!’

Guri Hjeltnes, VG

‘They Call Me the Wolf will remain a work of reference in Nordic literature for many years to come.’

Esthi Kunz, Gutkind

‘The touch and gaze in They Call Me the Wolf assure the reader that this authorship has much more to offer in the future.’

Bernhard Ellefsen, Morgenbladet

Shakar zeshan erika hebbert

Photo: Erika Hebbert

Zeshan Shakar (b. 1982) grew up in Oslo. He holds a degree in political science and also studied economics at BI Norwegian Business School. Shakar has worked in various government ministries and directorates and currently works at Oslo City Hall. For his first novel, Tante Ulrikkes Street (2017), he was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas Debutant Prize. The book sold over 150,000 copies. His second novel, Yellow Book, was released in 2020.

Shakar received the Oslo City Artist Prize and the Neshorn (Rhinoceros) Prize. In 2022, he was nominated for LO’s Literature Prize for Workers’ Literature. For They Call Me the Wolf (2022) he was awarded The Bookseller’s Prize

13 juli 2023/by Berith

Jørn Lier Horst – Ill Will // Illvilje

NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER

The Cold Case Quartet #3

A cold case heats up as the body of a young woman is found in the forest. She’s been killed and dismembered in a manner that’s eerily reminiscent of serial killer Tom Kerr’s signature m.o. But Kerr is currently serving his fourth year behind bars and couldn’t possibly have committed the murder. Everything points instead to the man the press named The Other – Kerr’s never-found partner.

Adrian Stiller prepares a reconstruction in which Kerr will lead the police to the remains of an old victim. The grave is in Eftang and Wisting is put in charge of security. His daughter Line has been recruited to document it all. But the reconstruction goes terribly wrong and when Kerr escapes, Wisting suddenly finds himself being made the scapegoat as both Kerr and The Other are free once more.

Pure evil in a solid Wisting crime novel. /…./ Jørn Lier Horst delivers credible crime fiction as always. Verdens Gang, Norway

Pure evil in a solid Wisting crime novel. /…./ Jørn Lier Horst delivers credible crime fiction as always.

Verdens Gang, Norway

CRIME/THRILLER

Capitana 2019
366 Pages
Original title: Illvilje
ISBN: 9788293671756

Download product sheet

24 juni 2023/by Berith

Cecilie Enger – A Minute’s Silence // Ett minutts stillhet

NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER

As a young woman, Åsta Petersen-Cooper left Norway with a desire to put her former life behind her. She brimmed with dreams of an international lifestyle of language, 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.’

VG, 5 out of 6 stars

‘Cecilie Enger writes compellingly about the despair, anger and bitterness of losing one’s grasp of language and one’s ability to speak.’

Dagbladet, 5 out of 6 stars

Gyldendal Norsk Forlag 2023
192 Pages
ISBN: 9788205577077 English sample translation available

22 mai 2023/by Berith

Anna Blix – 40 uker. En menneskegraviditet og 81 andre måter å få barn på

NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER

It takes 40 weeks to grow a human baby. Along the way, the relationship between the foetus and the pregnant woman bears resemblance to that of a parasite and its host. One takes and takes, while the other continue to give, risking their health in the process.

Anna Blix takes the reader on a personal, investigative, and deeply fascinating journey through each of the 40 weeks in a human pregnancy. Parallelly, for each week, we meet other creatures who have just delivered their next generation into the world. The bacteria E. coli has multiplied by two within 20 minutes. An Eastern grey kangaroo is pregnant for just 5 weeks before giving birth to a baby the size of a bean, which then crawls into its pouch to grow. And the birds with the longest incubation period of all, the wandering albatross, is done with their incubation period after only 10 weeks.

Why do we as humans carry our babies inside our bodies for so long, and is there a reason that we are throwing up and feeling nauseous? Are there any better ways to reproduce? And does any living creature reproduce in a stranger way than us humans?

This book gives evolutionary comfort throughout the troubles of pregnancy, and an explanation as to how we ended up here: as the smartest species with the most tiresome, but nonetheless not such a bad way to reproduce.

40 uker omslag dummy vol 5 0f94711f 75c9 4065 89f8 e277e57d9307

Cappelen Damm 2023 – Due Medio April
276 Pages
ISBN: 9788202774479

Trykk på logo – abonner på nyhetsbrev.

16 april 2023/by Berith

Ida Hegazi Høyer The Surgeon // Kirurgen

NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER

FICTION
NOVEL

Ida Hegazi Høyer

The Surgeon
Kirurgen

Tiden 2022
267 Pages
ISBN: 9788210058219 English sample translation available

The talented surgeon Henrik Wold has organized his life around his career and is now aiming for the department’s chief position. Life is quite simple for Henrik – until a young patient develops inexplicable complications after a standard procedure. For the first time in his professional life, he feels insecure, and the pressure evolves around him, both at work and at home. What happens when someone who pictures himself as invincible makes a mistake? What is revealed when the façade starts to crack? When does the surgeon’s pragmatic cynicism turn into destructiveness? And what is a human life worth?

With a brilliant take on human psychology, and a trained eye for comic interactions, Ida Hegazi Høyer takes us along on a two-week downhill journey in Henrik Wold’s life.

Nominated for the Listeners’ Novel Prize 2022

Høyer kirgurgen pocket 9788210058219 300dpi

‘A razor-sharp portrait of a young surgeon’s crushing fall.’

Dagsavisen

‘Hardly have I seen weirder, more delicious sentences on a book page this past year.’

Klassekampen

‘… teeming with phrases so precise that they shine like bright steel.’

Dag og Tid

‘A highlight this year.’

Morgenbladet

Ida Hegazi Høyer (b. 1981) made her debut in 2012 with the novel Under the World and quickly became a leading voice in contemporary Norwegian literature. In 2015 she was named one of Norway’s 10 most promising young writers by the newspaper Morgenbladet. In 2016, her novel Forgive Me won the EU Prize of Literature. She is the author of 7 novels and one collection of stories. Her books have been translated into 11 languages. The Surgeon was nominated for the Listeners’ Novel Prize 2022.

15 mars 2023/by Berith

Kim Hjardar Auðr – Women in the Viking Age

Diverse, NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER

Kim Hjardar

Auðr – Kvinneliv i vikingtiden

Spartacus Forlag 2022
228 illustrated Pages
ISBN: 9788243012097

Audr means wealth. It was a common name for women in the Viking age, emphasising their importance in society. They were poets, skilled artisans and entrepreneurs who had their own ships. Women traded, led expeditions and played a crucial role in sharing knowledge, educating and protecting societal values. It was women who were responsible for textile manufacture and the preparation and storage of food, in addition to their important duties as healers.

In this book, we follow Aud the Deep-Minded, a rural Norwegian woman, on a 4,000 kilometre journey throughout her life, from her childhood in Norway to her adulthood in Ireland, Scotland and the Hebrides and her old age in Iceland. Kim Hjardar uses Aud’s story as a prism. How can we consider the role of women and the opportunities available to them in the Viking period?

Women in the Viking Age offers a journey of discovery through a history that has been overlooked. Through engaging writing and thought-provoking illustrations of both reconstructions and archaeological finds, the book provides a fascinating insight into the lives of Viking women.

Kim Hjardar (b. 1966) has an MPhil in Nordic Viking and Medieval Culture studies from the University of Oslo, and works as a Lector of History at St. Hallvard College. He is a former head of Norway’s oldest and biggest association for living history re-enactments of the Viking period. Hjardar has published many books about the Vikings, among them Vikings at War (Vikinger i krig), 2011/2017, with Vegard Vike. The book was awarded the Saga Prize in 2012. This major and well-received work has been sold to Denmark, France, the UK, Spain and Sweden.
Hjardar’s works also include Vikings – Raiders from the Sea (Casemate 2017) and The Vikings’ Greatest Battles (Vikingenes største slag), 2020. Ha has also participated in several TV documentaries. Among them: Travel Channel´s Legend of the Lost with Megan Fox and National Geographic’s newest show, Vikings – The Rise and Fall.

Product sheet (PDF)

28 februar 2023/by Berith

Jan Grue – Trying and Failing // Prøve og feile

Diverse, NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER

Jan Grue

Trying and Failing
Prøve og feile

Gyldendal 2022
368 Pages
ISBN: 9788205566170 English sample translation and synopsis available

‘Are you trying to ruin your life?’ Hannah’s friends say when she tells them she’s having children with Magne.

Trial and Error is a novel about an almost completely normal couple. Like all parents of young children, Magne and Hannah have their challenges, but with Magne in a wheelchair even a trip to the beach at Huk turns into a gruelling odyssey. In spite of his master’s degree in literary science, Magne has a poorly paid job as a hotel receptionist. But with his visible disability, he is at least a welcome expression of the hotel chain’s benevolence and its diversity policy.

Magne and Hannah had intended to show the world – show the world that they could make it, show the world that it was possible.

But a lot can go wrong, and there are many ways to mess it all up.

‘With his novel “Trying and Failing”, Jan Grue completes an exceptional trilogy about disability and vulnerability. (…) Masterfully, Grue exposes the illusion that we all, even in Norway, have something within our reach that even comes close to resembling an equal life. (…) Grue affectingly demonstrates how complicated challenges for the disabled can really be – and how deeply problematic it is to pigeonhole people.’

VG, 5 out of 6 stars

Jan Grue (b. 1981) holds a PhD in Linguistics and is Professor of Qualitative Research at the University of Oslo.

His work deals with embodiment – with what it means to be a body in an endlessly complex world.

Jan Grue is the author of a wide-ranging body of work in fiction, non- fiction, and children’s literature. He made his debut with the short story collection Everything Under Control (2010), which was received with glowing reviews. He has since published a further four short story collections, the latest of which is Vexations (2019). His first novel, The Best of All Possible Worlds, came out in 2016. Among Grue’s works for children is Oliver (2012), a fantastical story about living wheelchairs. His academic books include Body Language, on the subject of the representations of disability in a cultural and socio-analytical perspective, and Theory in Practice, a primer on critical analysis.

His book of autobiographical non-fiction, I Live a Life Like Yours, was published in 2018 to critical acclaim. The book went on to win the Literary Critics’ Award and was nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize – as the first Norwegian non-fiction book in 50 years.

29 januar 2023/by Berith

Kjersti Herland Johnsen_ Jul på Himmelfjell hotell

NORLA – BOKANMELDELSER

Mette anbefaler!

Kjersti Herland Johnsen_ Jul på Himmelfjell hotell

Jeg er godt i gang med boken som forlaget omtaler som “Årets jule-feelgood” og “Den perfekte juleromanen”. Og dette er bra underholdning:
Fjellklatreren Ingrid Berg krysser sitt spor: etter en dramatisk skredulykke i Himalaya – og et samlivsbrudd – er hun er tilbake på det ærverdige høyfjellshotellet der hun vokste opp, nå som direktør for det hele. Men det er ikke bare glitter det som skimrer i vinterskaren der oppe i fjellheimen…
Hun møter en drøss av praktiske og økonomiske utfordringer, og slites mellom å bevare familietradisjonene og samtidig tilpasse seg influenceres ønske om Instagramvennlige aktiviteter.
Legg til grums fra overhodet i bygdas dominerende familie – med kallenavn Moskus – og ikke minst egne, skjulte familiehemmeligheter – og det er duket for forviklinger, både av det romantiske og juletradisjonsmessige slaget!

Cappelen Damm 2022

23 desember 2022/by Berith

Yohan Shanmugaratnam – We still breathe//Vi puster fortsatt

Siri Helle – Coming Home // Trollefossvegen 23

Zeshan Shakar – They Call me the Wolf // De kaller meg ulven

Foreign rights

Rights

Interview

Jørn Lier Horst – Ill Will // Illvilje

Cecilie Enger – A Minute’s Silence // Ett minutts stillhet

Anna Blix – 40 uker. En menneskegraviditet og 81 andre måter å få barn på

Ida Hegazi Høyer The Surgeon // Kirurgen

FICTION
NOVEL