The Year

In contemporary Norwegian fiction, Tomas Espedals work stands out as uniquely bound up with the authors personal experiences. His first book, Tramp, introduced us to the wanderer Tomas; Against Art told us how a boy approaches art and eventually becomes a writer; Against Nature examined loves laborthe job of writing; and in Bergerners, he is torn between his love for his home town and what lies beyond. Now, in The Year, we encounter the authors struggle to reconcile his inner life with the external world, and the myriad forms of love, hate, loss, and deathboth personal and literarywith the immutable pattern of time and the seasons. It is the journal of a year, a diary like no other. And suffusing it all are questions Petrarch asked: How do you live when the one you love is gone? And when your life force shifts from spring to autumn, how do you find the good death? Written as a long poem, The Year is Espedals riveting stream of consciousnessprofound, edgy, sometimes manic, but always intensely intimate.