The Syphilis Artist

In a tale of stark colours, contrasts, and emotions, we follow the Norwegian artist Andreas Olav Hansen's at times terrible and tragic life as he negotiates his way through his own private hell of blindness and solitude.

Obsessed with a girl called Mia Miraja, and not sure whether she is real or a fantasy, until she appears at the door of his grandfather's house in Southern Norway, his life melds into a multicoloured landscape of colours and beauty contrasting with utter darkness and loneliness.

In this shattering and beautiful debut novel by Per Olav Vers, we see shades of Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird, and the truth is brought home that evil sometimes can never be escaped, or fixed, or forgotten.