'How simple this novel is. How subtle. How strong. How unlike any other. It is unique. It is unforgettable. It is extraordinary' Doris Lessing 'I'm surprised it isn't the most famous book in the world' Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers 'She was close to the edge now: the ice laid its hand upon her' The schoolchildren call it the Ice Palace: a frozen waterfall in the Norwegian fjords transformed into a fantastic structure of translucent walls, sparkling towers and secret chambers. It fascinates two young girls, lonely Unn and lively Siss, who strike up an intense friendship. When Unn decides to explore the Ice Palace alone and doesn't return, Siss must try to cope with the loss of her friend without succumbing to a frozen world of her own making.

The Ice Palace

Literature & Fiction

Vesaas, Tarjei

Genre Fiction

Penguin Classic

'The best Norwegian novel ever' Karl Ove Knausgaard
Mattis doesn't understand much about the world. He doesn't understand why others call him simple. Or why his sister Hege, who has cared for him in their peaceful lakeside cottage since they were young, gets so frustrated. But he knows that the woodcock which starts to fly over their house every day is a sign something is about to change. And when Hege falls in love, disrupting their familiar existence and unbalancing his thoughts, he decides he must face his fate.
Translated by Torbjørn Støverud and Michael Barnes 
'A masterpiece' Literary Review
'Mattis, absurd and boastful, but also sweet, pathetic and even funny, is shown with great insight' Sunday Times

The Birds (Penguin Modern Classics)

Literary

Penguin Classics

The Bridges.

William Morrow

Tarjei Vesaas, one of Scandinavia's greatest fiction writers, has been less well known as a poet. Now Roger Greenwald, an award-winning translator of Scandinavian poetry, presents forty-six poems drawn from Vesaas's six volumes of poetry. This selection is intended to reveal the distinctive sensibility and voice of Vesaas the poet. The Norwegian texts appear facing the English versions, which won the American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize.
 The translator's groundbreaking introduction explores why Vesaas's poetry has often resisted critical analysis and how it challenges received notions of modernism. Excerpts from Vesaas's writings about himself and his work supply helpful background and give some sense of the man behind the work. Vesaas emerges as a lyric and meditative poet of uncommon depth, who renders states of being beyond the reach not only of discourse, but of most poetry as well.
 From "The Boat on Land":
 Your still boat hasn't got a name. Your still boat hasn't got a port. Your secret boat on land.
 From "Shadows on the Point"
 We stand here in your deep night, Night, and wait for something new from beyond the point. The current runs black and silent. And what we feel through it we don't tell each other.

Through Naked Branches

Poetry

Princeton University Press

Text: English, Norwegian (translation)

Spring night; (Unesco collection of contemporary works:)

Owen

Part allegory, part fable, The House In The Dark was written in secret during the German occupation of Norway, and gives a stirring picture of how a society struggled to stay united under the strain of being watched by their invaders.

The House in the Dark

Peter Owen Publishers

House in the Dark

PETER OWEN.

The boat in the evening;

Two 11-year old girls, Unn and Siss, meet. Unn is about to reveal a secret, one that leads to her death in a formation of ice caused by a large waterfall. Siss's struggle with her fidelity to the memory of a friend, the strange frozen world of the waterfall, and the description of Unn's fatal exploration of the ice palace are described in prose of a lyrical economy that ranks among the memorable achievements of modern literature. Often short-listed for the Nobel Prize, Tarjei Vesaas (1897-1976) was awarded the Nordic Council Prize in 1973 for this novel. A modernist who maintained a degree of technical experimentation throughout his work, he is generally considered to be one of Norway's great modern writers.  How simple this novel is. How subtle. How strong. How unlike any other. It is unique. It is unforgettable. It is extraordinary.""--Doris Lessing.  ""It is hard to do justice to The Ice Palace. The narrative is urgent, the descriptions relentlessly beautiful, the meaning as powerful as the ice piling up on the lake.""--The London Times.

The ice palace

P. Owen

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