|
Book reviews
Camilla Christensen: The Ground Beneath Høje
Gladsaxe
Hanne-Vibeke Holst: The Crown Princess
Kerstin Ekman: The Last String
Dag Solstad: 16 June 1941
Carl-Johan Vallgren: The Tale of a Marvellous Love
Story
Jan Jakob Tønseth: Resignation and port
Janina Katz: The Seventh Child
Jens Christian Grøndahl: Another Light
Malin Kivelä: Australia is also an island
Siv Bergman: Guts
Viðar Hreinsson: The Great Settler
Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir: Wherever I’ll
Be
Merete Morken Andersen: Oceans of time
Mikael Torfason: Samuel
Steinar Opstad: Optical representations
Jógvan Isaksen: Death is the Driving Force
Sigrun Slapgard: The pen of war. A biography of Lise
Lindbæk
Jo Nesbø: Happy go lucky
Pirjo Hassinen: The Christmas wife
Pia Tafdrup: The Whales in Paris
Jarl Hellemann: Literary businessmen
Stian Bromark and Dag Herbjørnsrud: Blatant
lies, dirty truths. A critique of the new world picture
Beate Grimsrud: What’s in the Woods, Children?
Marie Lundquist: A simple tale
Einar Kárason: KK
Stina Hammar: The sun egg
Naja Marie Aidt: The Ballad of Bianca
Øystein Rottem: The Coastal Express –
a trip in fiction
Ivo de Figueiredo: A free man. Johan Bernhard Hjort
– a biography
Sven Holm: The Other Side of Krista X
Sigurður Pálsson: A Place of Rest
Tor Bomann-Larsen: A concept of royalty. Haakon and
Maud 1
Stefán Máni: Israel
Jens M. Johansson: The funeral has already taken place
Red. Jouko Kokkonen: Kontula — life in the suburbs
Astrid Saalbach: The Cold Heart
Sami Aaltonen: Haunted houses
Lars Frode Larsen: A stranger to life. Hamsun on the
threshold to success 1891– 1893
Jakob Levinsen: Heroes and Hobbits
Aase Berg: Carrying fat
Gabriella Håkansson: The Sandemann case
Claes Bäckström: A charming young man
On the Wings of Fantasy: Imaginative Literature for
Children and Young People. Ed. Niels Dalgaard
Carl-Henning Wijkmark: The black wall
Klas Östergren: Three Portraits
Lars Andersson: The Bedrock
Riitta Jalonen: Hula-hula
Lars-Olof Larsson: Gustav Vasa — a father to
his people or a tyrant?
Katri Tapola: Ground rocks and wood sorrel
Tóroddur Poulsen: Royggj (Bughinde)
Tóroddur Poulsen: Peritoneum
Peter Luthersson: Swedish literary Modernism
Oddfríður Rasmussen: Stranglehold
Steinunn Sigurðardóttir: A Hundred Doors
in the Wind
Helle Helle: The Idea of an Uncomplicated Life with
a Man
Andri Snær Magnason: Lovestar
John Bang Jensen: Box
Einar O. Risa: Casanova’s final conquest
Annika Luther: The forest that God forgot
F.P. Jac: Waldemar Wimmers’ Arrival
Carina Nynäs: And paper kites got tangled in the
trees of Paintbrush wood
Svend Åge Madsen: The Ungodly Farce
Peter Laugesen: Grassinan Cantos / Radio Fiesole
Søren Ulrik Thomsen: The Worst and the Best
Wava Stürmer and Ulrika Löfholm: Johan Ludvig.
The boy from Jakobstad who became Finland’s national
poet
Christel Rönns: Pärlemo finds a home
Leena Leskinen: Stella
Lasse Midttun: The road to the Western Front. Essays
from a journey
Kari Hotakainen: Trench street
Marianne Peltomaa: A real family
Olav Angell: Oslo at dawn
Birgitta Boucht: The curator’s eye
Jóanes Nielsen: Bridges of Hungry Words
Brynhildur þórarinsdóttir:
Njáls’s
Saga
Hanus Kamban (editor): The New Atlantis – Science
Fiction and Fantasy
Illugi Jökulsson et.al: Iceland Through the Ages
Lise Svanholm: The Skagen Painters
Peter Michael Hornung: Peder Severin Krøyer
Camilla Christensen
The Ground Beneath Høje Gladsaxe
Samleren. DK
Camilla Christensen is primarily known as a poet, and this
is her first big novel. The book is a combination of a realistic
depiction of a block of flats in Høje Gladsaxe and
a jesting novel with a touch of social satire. – The
protagonist is the unemployed Arthur, who is forced to find
his purpose in life, and this is done through the encounter
with the residents of the neighbourhood: the Palestinian refugee
Salah, the homeless mayor, the quiet child, Birgitta, whom
Arthur has an affair with, and the witch Gunhild, with whom
he falls in love.
Hanne-Vibeke Holst
The Crown Princess
Gyldendal. DK
In a kind of preface, Hanne-Vibeke Holst states that her new
big fictional novel “is not a reflection of reality
although it may seem so”. This remark is understandable
as The Crown Princess to a large extent is a very realistic
picture of a modern political and mediafocused
reality. In the novel the 30-year-old Charlotte Damgaard is
offered the job as Minister for the Environment – this
is an invitation to the corridors of power but it also forces
her to see herself in relation to her own background in the
environmentalist movement. This brings about conflicts in
her marriage and in relation to her children.
Kerstin Ekman
The Last String
Albert Bonniers. S
The settings of this, the second part of the Wolfskin trilogy
include Stockholm, where Hillevi Halvarsson’s daughter
Myrtle goes to live.
The northern Swedish village of Svartvattnet (Blackwater;
known from other books by the same author) remains the mythical
hub of the story, however, and those who leave always return
sooner or later, “like homing pigeons”, bringing
their secrets back with them.
Dag Solstad
16 June 1941
Oktober. N
It goes without saying. One of the year’s best Norwegian
novels just had to be signed Dag Solstad. And so it was. And
needless to say
this book too is thinly disguised autobiography. The aging
first-person narrator’s long, prolific walks through
Berlin are at the same time a journey in pursuit of a father-son
relationship.
Carl-Johan Vallgren
The Tale of a Marvellous Love Story
Albert Bonniers. S
The August Prize 2002 was awarded to this novel, the story
of Hercule Barfuss, a deaf cripple born in a brothel in 1813,
who has the rare gift of being able to read people’s
minds. His destiny unfolds as a marvellous love story against
a backdrop of European historical events.
Jan Jakob Tønseth
Resignation and port
Cappelen. N
With this book Jan Jakob Tønseth completes his trilogy
centred on Hilmar Iversen. In the gloom of his shattered political
aspirations and lost personal illusions, Hilmar Iversen seeks
refuge in an internal exile in the small town of Fredrikstad.
Tønseth’s mastery of language is evident not
least in his outstanding handling of a 1950s vernacular, long
set out to graze. Like Hilmar Iversen himself.
Janina Katz
The Seventh Child
Vindrose. DK
Since her debut in 1991, Janina Katz has published a number
of poems and collections of short stories. In 2001 the novel
Abram was published and in her latest collection of poems,
The Seventh Child, she deals with central themes from this
novel. Katz is not afraid of big feelings such as love, death,
loss, and longing but in spite of the seriousness of these
themes, her humour and irony add a touch of cheerfulness and
optimism to the texts.
Jens Christian Grøndahl
Another Light
Gyldendal. DK
Grøndahl’s most recent novel links European history
with the story of an individual, namely Irene Beckman. The
protagonist is a 50-year-old woman, a lawyer with a socially
secure and affluent life. When her husband suddenly leaves
her, her life falls apart but at the same time the crisis
opens up a new world and confronts her with her past, present,
and future.
Malin Kivelä
Australia is also an island
Söderströms. FIN
Ole is a young boy who loves to eat, read and classify things,
such as pine cones. He is spending the summer with his grandparents
on
an island in the Finnish archipelago while his mother takes
a trip to Italy with her new husband and baby. The setting,
life at a summer
cottage on an island, is practically a genre of its own in
Swedishlanguage literature in Finland. On the island, protagonists
generally learn that the world is a big place and that there
are inevitably family secrets. This ? rst-time writer also
deftly handles a double perspective; the reader also picks
up the things that Ole cannot bring himself to say.
Siv Bergman
Guts
Scriptum. FIN
This was the winner of a writing competition arranged by a
publishing company. The setting is a small town, the protagonists
are two girls and the plot centres on a challenge that these
two friends have accepted. They are supposed to prove that
girls are as brave as boys. To begin with, courage seems to
consist of daring to perform increasingly wild pranks. Thus
far, the book follows convention. One important point is the
code in which the challenges are communicated. It is a marker
of a distinct (sub)culture, and will prove easiest to crack
for eleven-year-olds.
Viðar Hreinsson
The Great Settler
Bjartur. IS
The biography of Stephan G. Stephansson, Icelandic poet, political
internationalist and pacifist. Stephan emigrated to Canada
and later to the USA where he became a farmer. He wrote poetry
in Icelandic throughout his lifetime. The author, Viðar
Hreinsson, himself a farmer’s son and an educated literary
historian, has woven together his life and work in one of
the best writers biographies to emerge in Iceland for some
time.
Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir
Wherever I’ll Be
Mál og menning. IS
A new volume of poetry from one of Iceland’s leading
poets. As in her earlier work, we follow the life of a woman
of her generation. The past is a more pressing subject than
before. Her poetic sensitivity, a mixture of plain language
and often surprisingly crafted verse, makes her one of the
masters of the modern Icelandic poetic form.
Merete Morken Andersen
Oceans of time
Gyldendal. N
Merete Morken Andersen is a key figure on the Norwegian literary
scene by dint of her work as journal and publishing editor.
But she writes too. And with Hav av tid comes well-deserved
recognition – not least from the reading public. The
suicide of a young girl whips up a whirlwind of emotions and
relentless self-searching among the people she left behind.
Mikael Torfason
Samuel
JPV. IS
From Aarhus, Denmark sounds the voice of the schizophrenic
Samuel. As his story unfolds he ponders over his own dysfunctional
family in Iceland, his days as one of Jehova’s witnesses,
the Danes’ hostility to immigrants, Baudrillard, Pia
Kjærsgaard and the necessity of a revolution against
reality. This is a critical and powerful novel, which cuts
across Nordic borders.
Steinar Opstad
Optical representations
Kolon. N
Steinar Opstad is one of our most prominent poets and without
doubt the most well-known of the younger generation. This
is his fourth collection already. His way with words is crystalline
and his literary assurance gives these sensitive and unerring
poems a quite
Jógvan Isaksen
Death is the Driving Force
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
This collection of articles focuses primarily on William Heinesen’s
poetry, explaining among other things that all the common
themes of his work are present in his early books. There are
also articles about Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen and Heðin
Brú.
Sigrun Slapgard
The pen of war. A biography of Lise Lindbæk
Gyldendal. N
Among the many good biographies released last year we find
Sigrun Slapgard’s on the journalist and author Lise
Lindbæk. Lise Lindbæk
was Norway’s first prominent female war journalist,
covering among other conflicts the Spanish civil war in the
thirties. Her personal downturn is sensitively and touchingly
dealt with, unique only by virtue of the protagonist’s
sex. But all the more typical of her generation of risk-seeking
reporters.
Jo Nesbø
Happy go lucky
Aschehoug. N
Jo Nesbø is a rare, multitalented individual. And he
proves once again in this new thriller about detective Harry
Hole that he spins a yarn better than most. The complex intrigue
never gets in the way of the forward thrust of this mesmerising
tale of cops and robbers. There is nothing better than really
good entertainment, and at the moment there’s no better
yarn spinner than Jo Nesbø.
Pirjo Hassinen
The Christmas wife
Otava. FIN
A mother disappears without a trace. Much later, the police
begin to investigate the possibility of a crime. Interviews
with the daughter yield nothing. But Pirjo Hassinen’s
writing skill does, and she succeeds with something that run-of-the-mill
crime writers seldom do; she writes a book where the crime
and its solution are upstaged by what is ultimately more interesting
anyway: the characters. Religious fundamentalism and sex combine
in a complex way to make the ingredients of a novel which
is eerie and uncompromisingly real all at once.
Pia Tafdrup
The Whales in Paris
Gyldendal. DK
Tafdrup is one of the purest of Denmark’s lyric poets
– not only in her predilection for the genre, but also
in tone, style and composition. In her most recent anthology,
40 thematically very diverse poems are grouped together in
nine major sections, each with a value of its own and its
own distinctive flavour. Taken by itself, just the title of
the anthology is enough to illustrate the breadth of her universe:
Tafdrup’s whales are in their element not in the oceans
of untameable nature but slap bang in the middle of Paris,
the epitome of man-made culture and art! But, though her themes
and motives vary kaleidoscopically, her love for the phenomena
she describes is the pervasive vision which binds her world
together.
Jarl Hellemann
Literary businessmen
Otava. FIN
Essays about the great personalities in publishing in Finland
and abroad. The era when Finnish publishing companies were
family firms run by patriarchal ‘squires’ is thoroughly
covered. Today’s publishing world where women often
hold leading positions is missing. The only woman included
is Virginia Woolf, who was not just a writer but also her
own publisher (The Hogarth Press). Thomas Mann & Bermann
Fischer, Ernest Hemingway & Maxwell Perkins also feature.
Stian Bromark og Dag Herbjørnsrud
Blatant lies, dirty truths. A critique of the new world
picture
Tiden. N
The authors are among the most distinguished of the new clutch
of young culture writers. In this book they lay into all the
purity-seeking myths they believe made it impossible to understand
the radical global changes of the past decade. Their battle
on behalf of a dirty historiography is simultaneously a battle
against forgetting.
Beate Grimsrud
What’s in the Woods, Children?
Albert Bonniers. S
In this independent sequel to her critically acclaimed childhood
memoir, I Sneak Past an Axe, the children have grown up. Lydia
and Anders have been asked to come to a village far away in
the north because their brother has gone missing in the mountains,
and the story about the siblings takes the form of a thriller.
Marie Lundquist
A simple tale
Albert Bonniers. S
In her latest volumes of poetry, Marie Lundquist has cultivated
prose poetry and turned it into a very personal, enigmatic
and intense format. Here, a dead mother stands at the epicentre
of her ‘simple tale’.
Einar Kárason
KK
AB. IS
Einar Kárason has interviewed the musician KK and narrates
his adventurous life as, amongst other things, a street musician
in Iceland, the USA and Sweden. The popular form of the interview
book, often scolded for bestsellerism and sloppiness, is reinvented
in this book.
Stina Hammar
The sun egg
Albert Bonniers. S
This, the most recent addition to biographical literature
on Elsa Beskow (1874-1953), well-loved Swedish children’s
writer and illustrator, has many merits, including an explanation
of the power that her fairy tale characters still exert over
the Swedish imagination today.
Naja Marie Aidt
The Ballad of Bianca
Gyldendal. DK
»The Ballad of Bianca« is an interesting publication,
the product of a collaboration between a poet, Naja Marie
Aidt, and Kim Lykke, a
graphic designer and photographer. The book constitutes a
beautiful collage of harsh, realistic pictures from everyday
life. Bianca is the
book’s recurrent figure whom we hear about from the
motley crowd of people in the street – alcoholics, lesbians,
a mongol, a greengrocer,
and a priest. The texts range from short prose passages and
poems to fairy-tales and imaginary interviews.
Øystein Rottem
The Coastal Express – a trip in fiction
Press. N
The literary scholar and reviewer Øystein Rottem serves
up a generous helping from his literary galley in this atypical
literary guide to the Norwegian coastline and its literature.
Riding the wave produced by Norway’s famous Coastal
Express – a fast-moving ferry plying the coast from
Bergen to Kirkenes with stops at many places along the way
– Rottem guides us through the multifarious literary
landscape common to this particular strip of Norway. Applied
literary criticism at its best.
Ivo de Figueiredo
A free man. Johan Bernhard Hjort – a biography
Aschehoug. N
Johan B. Hjort was one of the most original Norwegian characters
of the twentieth century. A lawyer with aristocratic leanings,
he grew from a position as Vidkun Quisling’s right-hand
man in the thirties through active participation in the resistance
in the war and to become one of the most indefatigable campaigners
for the inalienable legal rights of the individual in post-war
Norway. A veritable prism of his times, superbly narrated
in this prize-winning biography.
Sven Holm
The Other Side of Krista X
Gyldendal. DK
The novel’s protagonist, Krista, is an artist. She is
in Rome when she sees the terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center. This dramatic incident sets off an inner avalanche
in Krista. She decides that something drastic needs to happen.
Her life with her husband and her child seems to be disintegrating,
and she returns to Denmark, where she tries to find the love
of her youth, her past, and herself.
Sigurður Pálsson
A Place of Rest
JPV. IS
A poetic novel focused on the vitality of language and poetry.
The translator Reynir who has spent his life in Brussels translating
reports must return to his childhood home upon his mother’s
death. His journey through the landscapes and the language
of his childhood force him to rediscover his past, language,
love, and the poetic talent he has repressed.
Tor Bomann-Larsen
A concept of royalty. Haakon and Maud 1
Cappelen. N
One of Norway’s finest stylists has completed a worthy
biographical undertaking. Along with this record of independent
Norway’s first royal couple, Haakon and Maud, Bomann-Larsen
paints a picture of the dynastic, historic and political factors
that underlay the emergence of a sense of Norwegian-ness,
the nation’s modern image of itself. This is top-flight
national history.
Stefán Máni
Israel
Forlagið. IS
Jakob, or Israel as he calls himself, is one of the last vagrant
labourers in Iceland. Once he was one of thousands of people
who travelled the country looking for seasonal work, but the
society’s stability in the present time has put a stop
to his nomadic way of life, and like everyone else he is forced
to settle down with his own steady job, a visa card and a
family. Israel’s wanderings and his unavoidable demise
are depicted in a constructed, but effective, style by a writer
that sees Iceland’s contemporary history through a different
prism than most.
Jens M. Johansson
The funeral has already taken place
Tiden. N
The most assured stylistic debut of 2002 impressed critics
and readers alike. Jens M. Johansson’s book is a collection
of short stories all of which revolve around the same event:
a middle-aged man’s unexpected death and the subsequent
reactions to it among his friends and relations. One of the
candid questions asked by the author is whether grief as a
response to death is determined by social convention. Or by
egoism, pure and simple.
Red. Jouko Kokkonen
Kontula — life in the suburbs
SKS. FIN
The history of the most notorious example of the Finnish concrete
suburb. It turns out, however, that many of the inhabitants
like their neighbourhood and wouldn’t live anywhere
else. Kokkonen has asked people to write short pieces about
their lives and also compiled a local history overview of
the district. This is an interesting and at times nostalgic
trip back in time to when Finland was still comparatively
poor; as recently as 30 years ago the indoor plumbing of these
suburban concrete blocks seemed positively heavenly. Nevermind
the fact that solid ground was nine floors down.
Astrid Saalbach
The Cold Heart
Rosinante. DK
The media are full of people who go to the dogs in the pitiless
vortex of society. Astrid Saalbach’s new play in sixteen
scenes tells the opposite story. It is a modern fairy-tale
about Sofie, a young drug addict who climbs from the absolute
bottom of society to its aristocratic top. Sofie’s fix
in the cellar of an inner city block of flats leads to a romance
with her country’s crown prince.
Sami Aaltonen
Haunted houses
Nemo. FIN
There really are ghosts. At least in Finland. The writer has
researched haunted houses (a majority of ghosts appear to
be women for some reason) and simultaneously covers a great
deal of culture and political history. The book will give
you goosebumps and also a solid grounding in certain aspects
of Finnish history, e.g. Governor-General Bobrikoff and his
killer, Eugen Schauman. Schauman and Bobrikoff are now doing
a turn as ghosts in the Palace of the Council of State. At
the Donner residence, the Grey Lady continues to haunt the
house where she was walled up by her cuckolded husband. This
is an attractive book for people who love old buildings, as
there are many photographs of the haunted houses — none
of the ghosts were caught on film, however.
Lars Frode Larsen
A stranger to life. Hamsun on the threshold to success
1891– 1893
Schibsted. N
This volume is the final instalment of one of the most remarkable
and impressive biographical undertakings ever to be seen in
Norway. Lars Frode Larsen lays bare Knut Hamsum’s first
34 years more thoroughly and more exhaustively than anyone
before him – and, most likely, anyone after him. A uniquely
informative and intriguing contribution to our understanding
of the formation of Norwegian literature and culture.
Jakob Levinsen
Heroes and Hobbits
Lindhardt og Ringhof. DK
An authoritative and well-written summary of Tolkien’s
life and work. »The Hobbit«, »The Lord of
the Rings« and other books are discussed, and Tolkien’s
background and source of inspiration are explained. A book
that could make you read these novels yet again and still
appreciate new sides of them.
Aase Berg
Carrying fat
Albert Bonniers. S
Aase Berg, one of the editors of new BLM, a Swedish cultural
journal which has been resurrected in a very cool layout,
also published what is probably the most deliciously designed
collection of poetry of the year. The rhythmical poetry centres,
as implied by the cryptic title, around a pregnancy.
Gabriella Håkansson
The Sandemann case
Albert Bonniers. S
Gabriella Håkansson’s long-awaited second novel
is about the agent Anabel Shank who is given the assignment
of tracking her colleague
Sandemann who has disappeared in mysterious circumstances.
The novel displays a playful enjoyment of literary allusions
on a labyrinthine
journey through Morocco, Egypt and Arabia.
Claes Bäckström
A charming young man
Norstedts. S
This autobiographical account by artist Claes Bäckström
of the secrecy and shame of his childhood and youth as an
illegitimate child and budding homosexual touched many hardened
critics’ hearts and unexpectedly became a popular tip
for a Christmas present.
On the Wings of Fantasy
Imaginative Literature for Children and Young People.
Ed. Niels Dalgaard
Høst & Søn. DK
This anthology presents the various genres of fantastic literature,
and deals with their success in the world of children’s
literature. There
are articles about J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, Stines Gåsehudserie
and a range of Danish writers for young people.
Carl-Henning Wijkmark
The black wall
Norstedts. S
Wijkmark’s novel is set in the future, in 2009. A man
returns to Sweden after an absence of 50 years to find out
why his father was made to leave the country during World
War II. The search for the Sweden of long ago becomes an incisively
critical view of contemporary life.
Klas Östergren
Three Portraits
Albert Bonniers. S
After a successful interlude as a drama scriptwriter for Swedish
TV, Klas Östergren now returns to literature with this
three-part novel, in which the male narrator creates literary
portraits of one friend, one colleague and one woman, and
the deceptive simplicity of the surface conceals unsuspected
mysteries, as is usual with Östergren.
Lars Andersson
The Bedrock
Albert Bonniers. S
‘The Bedrock’ of the title of Lars Andersson’s
new novel is the Bofors iron works in his childhood home town
of Karlskoga, and from this town, three brothers go out into
the world, much like the archetypal three brothers of a folktale.
Their story creates a link between the Värmland of their
youth and present-day India.
Riitta Jalonen
Hula-hula
Tammi. FIN
Eleven-year old Hellä lives in a ‘commune’
with her mother, father and lots of lodgers. Like all children,
Hellä inhabits a world of her own (where objects such
as shoes have functions that no adult is aware of; especially
the ‘comforting shoes’ often come in handy). Jalonen’s
memory of childhood — or her compassionate imagination
- is impressive. The text is taciturn yet infinitely rich,
with tenderness and cruelty in the same embrace.
Lars-Olof Larsson
Gustav Vasa — a father to his people or a tyrant?
Prisma. S
This portrait of Gustav Vasa won the August Prize and was
considered the most brilliant work among a surprising number
of historical biographies published in 2002. “This is
a must for anyone who wants to find out about the origins
of Sweden as a nation,” was one critic’s opinion.
Katri Tapola
Ground rocks and wood sorrel
Tammi. FIN
A gang of girls has found a glade in the forest. Here, they
crumble rocks, pack them in bags and sell them to friendly
adults. But soon the peace is disturbed, as a gang of boys
tries to invade their turf. As in all good fairy tales, the
women win in the end, this time by throwing rock-dust in the
boys’ eyes and blinding them with reflections from aluminium
foil. This is a story of the fundamentals of life: the battle
between good and evil.
Tóroddur Poulsen
Royggj (Bughinde)
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
Samtidig med rejser ud i verden, befinder resonansbunden sig
i barndommens kvarter i Tórshavn. Et nyt liv anes under
overfladen af enkelte tekster, mens iagttagelser af verden,
den indre og den ydre, danner samlingens kerne.
Tóroddur Poulsen
Peritoneum
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
While travelling round the world, your sounding board remains
back in the district of Tórshavn where you grew up.
A new life can be sensed beneath the surface of some texts,
but observations of the world (the internal and the external
world) form the core of this collection.
Peter Luthersson
Swedish literary Modernism
Atlantis. S
The focus of much attention, Peter Luthersson’s critique
of the accepted and conventional views of how Modernism entered
Swedish literature and its alleged pioneers bears the subtitle
A controversial view.
Oddfríður Rasmussen
Stranglehold
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
These texts have been inspired to a large extent by other
poets. The longest poem, dedicated to William S. Burroughs,
contains an open and violent confrontation with trends and
philosophies in modern society.
Steinunn Sigurðardóttir
A Hundred Doors in the Wind
Mál og menning. IS
Few writers master the form of the short story, but Steinunn
Sigurðardóttir has. This tells the tale of a middle-aged
woman, looking back on a life she has allowed to be ruined
by her obsession with an old love.
Helle Helle
The Idea of an Uncomplicated Life with a Man
Samleren. DK
Helle Helle’s second novel is both simple, and realistic,
and, at the same time, highly sophisticated. It’s a
story of an eternal triangle which is primarily narrated in
inner, psychological terms: Susanne, who is a cleaner, joins
up with Kim, who spends all his time at home because he dreams
of becoming a writer. When Susanne’s homeless and pregnant
girl-friend moves in with them, their senses and emotions
are intensified, and we witness all the complications which
(in)fidelity can give rise to.
Andri Snær Magnason
Lovestar
Mál og menning. IS
A post-modern dystopia. Set in the future, Lovestar Inc. has
total control of life, death and love. Every individual’s
desires are fulfilled following precise calculations. But
what happens when a boy and a girl fall in love, despite the
fact that, according to the great scheme of things, they do
not belong together? And how does God fit into the picture?
John Bang Jensen
Box
Borgen. DK
The book consists of nineteen short prose stories which resemble
small fragments or snapshots of the city and the world. »The
infinitely great in the infinitely small«, as Brandes
phrased it. The narrative technique ranges from the blunt
and uncomplicated to a more bizarre and cryptic style. But
a common feature of the stories is that life always turns
out to be more complex than at first assumed.
Einar O. Risa
Casanova’s final conquest
Tiden. N
Cosmopolitan, gambler, spy and eroticist, from the vantage
point of his latter years Giacomo Casanova sits down to take
stock of his life. What does he recall? And what can be saved
from the remnants of a hectic life spent in the company of
tentative veils and whispering silk? A fascinating fictional
chronicle of a fascinating factual life.
Annika Luther
The forest that God forgot
Söderströms. FIN
Behind the slightly sensationalist title there is an unusually
suspensefilled novel for young adults about a school class
who take a field trip to the deep forests of eastern Finland
to study plants. Some of the kids are planning an adventure
of their own: they intend to cross the border into Russia.
And they do, but not quite in the way they intended. The outing
turns into a journey of life and death. This is not about
ideal qualities; everyone’s courage and loyalty is tested,
individually and as a group.
F.P. Jac
Waldemar Wimmers’ Arrival
Borgen. DK
The highly productive Jac has written what he describes as
“a scoundrel novel”. Waldemar Wimmers, the middle-aged
protagonist in the
short novel, is a social misfit and thus no exception to Jac’s
typical anti-heroes. He inherits some money and tries to create
a new life for
himself and his girlfriend, a student of theology, from Århus.
They move into a summerhouse where they decide to focus on
spontaneity
and happiness. But already at the house-warming things start
going wrong. Jac and his protagonists have always found it
difficult to fit in and adapt themselves.
Carina Nynäs
And paper kites got tangled in the trees of Paintbrush
wood
Söderströms. FIN
‘Paintbrush wood’ of the title is an allusion
to the Hanlin Academy, founded in the 8th century AD, whose
collections were all but obliterated by the Chinese themselves
during the Boxer Rebellion. The motifs of these poems comprise
all the fundamental concepts which might emerge from the idea
of such an archive in jeopardy: memory, time, the blows of
fate, the importance of holding something sacred. The poet
is a member of a group which has been translating Lithuanian
poetry, for example Sigitas Geda, and she has willingly absorbed
some influences from his forceful work.
Svend Åge Madsen
The Ungodly Farce
Gyldendal. DK
In the introductory pages of the novel we meet a perfectly
ordinary young man, Jesper Fegge, who despises his mother’s
weekly magazines,
but reads them secretly. Having filled out a questionnaire,
he gets indisputable proof of the fact that he is “a
happy man”. Then, however, as always in Madsen’s
strange universe, “catastrophic” things start
to happen. Jesper falls in love with a girl, and he gets a
violent blow on the head. Both incidents change his life radically.
He “loses unconsciousness”, and his conscious
and subconscious minds thus merge into a single thread of
simultaneous perception – and time stands still in the
resulting labyrinth of choices to be made about his future
life. With characteristic virtuosity, Svend Åge Madsen
plays yet another brilliant cadenza on the theme of insane
logic.
Peter Laugesen
Grassinan Cantos / Radio Fiesole
Borgen. DK
Laugesen’s most recent book, which was published in
connection with his sixtieth birthday, is a “double”
book, in which two books start from either end, and meet in
the middle! Grassinan Cantos is a collection of deliberately
draftlike poems, which have the form of entries in a diary,
while Radio Fiesole consists of prose texts, ranging from
prose poetry to almost purely theoretical reflections. Florence
today, or the Florence of
Dante’s day, are the mutual points of departure for
all the texts.
Søren Ulrik Thomsen
The Worst and the Best
Vindrose. DK
The book was inspired by a poem by Charles Bukowski, and it
comprises a suite of 21 poems. It is a large-scale project
in which life’s wonderful moments are confronted with
the deepest vexations of our existences. The texts weave a
web of poetry around the worst things and the best things
in life – be they experiences in the real world, or
just emotions in the mind and heart of the poet. Imaginative
and naïvely narrational pencil drawings by Ib Spang Olsen
illustrate all the poems and references.
Wava Stürmer och Ulrika Löfholm
Johan Ludvig. The boy from Jakobstad who became Finland’s
national poet
City of Jakobstad. FIN
Jakobstad (Finnish: Pietarsaari), the home town of Finland’s
national poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, celebrates its own anniversary
(350 years) and Runeberg’s anniversary (in 2004, 200
years will have passed since his birth), with a picture book
about the poet. Introducing children and young people to our
national poet is a praiseworthy but very difficult project.
Here, the chosen format is a factual biography with ethnographically
accurate watercolour illustrations. The book also points out
the poet’s importance for Swedish language and culture.
Christel Rönns
Pärlemo finds a home
Söderströms. FIN
Picture books where children adopted from faraway countries
can recognize themselves without being exposed to sententiousness
or
crypto-racism can be hard to find, but this one is a good
try, anyway. The elephants Sten and Smulan hear that there
is a lonely white baby
elephant in a country far away in the north. They immediately
go and rescue him. The illustrations have a bright and humorous
look, and the elephants make wonderful parents. Parents cannot
very well get more solid and reliable than that.
Leena Leskinen
Stella
WSOY. FIN
A novel for young adults set in the 1970s. Stella alights
in a small town. Ossi is very shy and can only dream about
her, while Jykä is more active and soon becomes her boyfriend.
Excellent period description, including many long-forgotten
Finnish slang words, explained in a glossary.
Lasse Midttun
The road to the Western Front. Essays from a journey
Aschehoug. N
The experienced journalist and critic Lasse Midttun has visited
together with the illustrator Lasse Kolsrud the scenes of
the most
bloody battles of the First World War. The result is a detailed
and
gripping account of the dramatic early years of the last century.
But
it is also a powerful, personal story of an unrelenting sense
of loss.
Kari Hotakainen
Trench street
WSOY. FIN
Matti Virtanen is about to fulfil the dream that every Finn
aspires to: his very own house. Hotakainen, a master of one-liners,
has finally
written a novel with mass appeal; it has won the Finlandia
Prize and is top of the bestseller list. This is a novel about
the honour of men. The laconic humour of the text tends to
veil the fundamental tragedy from time to time, and ultimately,
Matti Virtanen stands out more as an archetype than a unique
individual.
Marianne Peltomaa
A real family
Schildts. FIN
Peltomaa writes about international adoption for the second
time. In Resan (The journey, 1998), Anna Enberg adopts a daughter
from Colombia, on her own. Now the little girl gets a brother,
Pablito. The material is based on reality in the sense that
the writer has two adopted children of her own. The only fictitious
element is the narrative principle for the experiences of
prejudices against a multi-racial single parent family, but
also the profound joy of a sense of belonging which transcends
cultural boundaries.
Olav Angell
Oslo at dawn
Gyldendal. N
Yet another concluding book of yet another trilogy from one
of our most outstanding stylists. Olav Angell’s description
of his childhood and adolescence stretches from the 1930s
to the 1950s, offering sensitive impressions and freeflowing
improvisations along the way. The jazz of that era is the
backdrop against which the writer evokes his own personal
recollections and our common cultural memory.
Birgitta Boucht
The curator’s eye
Schildts. FIN
Ms Boucht has always demonstrated an unorthodox approach to
genres ever since her first work was published in 1975. This
time, she has compiled sixty-three texts from trips to places
such as Baghdad, Thorshavn, Florence and Örebro. They
sketch up engaging experiences,
saucy innuendoes, arguments or unexpected moments of tranquillity.
The motto could well be the title of her first work, Denna
värld är vår! (This world is ours!) The book
feels like a conquering expedition in miniature.
Jóanes Nielsen
Bridges of Hungry Words
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
The author’s poetry has a primitive force that switches
between the proletarian and poetry, demonstrating equal respect
for both. Living on the Faeroe Islands is compared with trees
being forced up out of the soil – but this is where
life has to be lived.
Brynhildur þórarinsdóttir
Njáls’s Saga.
Mál og menning. IS
Njál’s Saga rewritten for children. The author
is a young writer who also made her debut as a children’s
writer last year. The book is amply illustrated and contains
supplementary information on life and literature in the past.
Hanus Kamban (red.)
The New Atlantis – Science Fiction and Fantasy
Bókadeild Føroya Lærarafelags og Føroya
Skúlabókagrunnur. FO
The biggest and best science fiction anthology in Faeroese
ever published. Excellently translated and edited by Hanus
Kamban, who has also written a lengthy summary of the history
of this genre.
Illugi Jökulsson et.al
Iceland Through the Ages
JPV. IS
The third volume of a richly-illustrated popular history of
Iceland in the 20th century. The form is a collage, often
similar to that of a newspaper covering the entire century.
Lise Svanholm
The Skagen Painters
Gyldendal. DK
This beautiful book contains an extremely competent account
of a group of artists living in Skagen, Denmark 100 years
ago. The structure
involves a mixture of biography, art history and cultural
history, including a study of the relationship between Marie
and P.S. Krøyer.
Peter Michael Hornung
Peder Severin Krøyer
Forlaget Palle Fogtdal. DK
The first major monograph in art history devoted to P.S. Krøyer’s
life and art. The author has accomplished the task in exemplary
fashion, making the book a stimulating read.
|
