The Other Name: Septology I - II

The Other Name: Septology I - II

Jon Fosse The Nobel Prize

Original title: Det andre namnet: Septologien I-II
Publisher: Samlaget, 2019
Pages: 514 pages

Download product sheet (PDF)

The first book of Jon Fosse’s magnum opus.

Jon Fosse has completed a 1250 page prose work: Septology. He started writing prose again in the summer of 2015, after a short break, and since then he has been writing constantly. The work as a whole is called Septology and the seven parts were published in three volumes: The Other Name: Septology I – II, I is Another: Septology III – V and A New Name: Septology VI – VII.

The main character and first-person narrator of Septology, Asle, is a painter and widower who lives in the house in Dylgja, where he used to live with his wife Ales. He is now alone; almost the only people he still sees are his neighbour, Åsleik—an old-fashioned country fisherman—and his gallerist, Beyer, who lives in the city of Bjørgvin, a couple of hours’ drive to the south.

Another Asle, also a painter, lives in Bjørgvin, and he and the narrator are doppelgangers, in a way, or perhaps two versions of the same person, the same life. The one who married Ales also became religious, quit drinking, and became a successful painter; the other is on a harder path. It is a central event of Fosse’s fictional universe when they meet. The action of the novel takes place during Advent, shortly before Christmas, with the lives of the two Asles told both in flashback and in the present.

Septology is about the nature of art, and God; about alcoholism and the passage of time. Like so much of Fosse’s work, it address love, death, and the sea.

Foreign rights

Arabic: (Saudi-Arabia) Dar Athar
Brazilian-Portuguese: Editora Fósforo
Chinese (simplified): Yilin Press
Chinese (traditional): Ecus Publishing House
Croatian: Naklada Ljeva
Czech: Host
Danish: Batzer & Co
Dutch: Uitgeverij Oevers
English (UK): Fitzcarraldo Editions
English (US): Transit Books
English (ANZ): Giramondo
Estonian: Eesti Raamat
Faroese: Sprotin
Finnish: WSOY
French: Christian Bourgois
Georgian: Bakur Sulakauri Publishing
German: Rowohlt
Greek: Gutenberg
Hungarian: Kalligram
Italian: La Nave di Teseo
Lithuania: Aukso žuvy
Persian: Borj Books (A division of Houpaa Publication, Iran)
Polish: ArtRage
Portuguese: Cavalo de Ferro
Romanian: Pandora
Russian: Eksmo
Serbian: Treći Trg
Spanish: De Conatus
Swedish: Bonniers
Turkish: Monokl Yayinlari

Awards

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020
Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2020
Nominated for the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature 2019
Nominated for the Brage Prize 2019
Nynorsk Literature Prize 2019

Only Jon Fosse can write like this! […] New readers who want to experience true art have reason to rejoice over The Other Name: Septology I-II.

VG

Fosse has written a strange mystical mobius strip of a novel, in which an artist struggles with faith and loneliness, and watches himself, or versions of himself, fall away into the lower depths. The social world seems distant and foggy in this profound, existential narrative, which is only the first part of what promises to be a major work of Scandinavian fiction.

Hari Kunzru, author of White Tears

Jon Fosse’s prose is so musical that it can give meaning to the mere keeping of time. […] A magnificent reading experience. […] This book is on fire.

BOK365

Jon Fosse writes brilliantly about art creating light out of darkness. […] The book is easy to read and understand, and it’s beautiful to breathe in Fosse’s rhythm. […] Sexy prose. […] An inspired and inspiring artist-novel.

Dagsavisen

Jon Fosse

Portrett jf kred agnete brun
Photo: Agnete Brun

Nobel Prize-winner Jon Fosse (b. 1959), is widely considered one of the most important writers of our time. For almost forty years, he has written novels, plays, poems, stories, essays, and children’s books. His award-winning work has been translated into more than fifty languages and his plays have been staged over a thousand times all over the world.

Jon Fosse grew up in Strandebarm, a small village in the western part of Norway, he now in the Grotten, an honorary residence in Oslo, as well as in Hainburg, Austria, and Frekhaug, Norway.

Fosse was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023 and has received numerous prizes, both in Norway and internationally through the years.

Read more

Other titles by Jon Fosse

Jon Fosse

2002

Jon Fosse

2009
In a Dark Forest

Jon Fosse

2023
I Am the Wind

Jon Fosse

2008
Collected Essays

Jon Fosse

2011
Nightsongs

Jon Fosse

1998
How it Was

Jon Fosse

2020
Very Very Slowly

Jon Fosse

1989

Jon Fosse

2004
The Girl in the Sofa

Jon Fosse

2003

Jon Fosse

2005

Jon Fosse

2006
Songs

Jon Fosse

2009
Warm

Jon Fosse

2006
Red, Black

Jon Fosse

1983
Shadows

Jon Fosse

2007
Stone to Stone

Jon Fosse

2013
The Bottle Collector

Jon Fosse

1991
Scenes from a Childhood

Jon Fosse

1994
The Fiddler Girl

Jon Fosse

2009
Melancholy I - II

Jon Fosse

1995, 1996
The Name

Jon Fosse

1995
Death Variations

Jon Fosse

2002
Boathouse

Jon Fosse

1989
These Eyes

Jon Fosse

2009
Shorter Prose

Jon Fosse

2011
Little Sister

Jon Fosse

2000
Girl in Yellow Raincoat

Jon Fosse

2010
Kant

Jon Fosse

1990
The Dog Manuscripts

Jon Fosse

1995, 1996, 1997
Living Rock

Jon Fosse

2015
Morning and Evening

Jon Fosse

2000
Collected Poems

Jon Fosse

2001
Closed Guitar

Jon Fosse

1985
Someone Is Going to Come

Jon Fosse

1996
Dark and Wet

Jon Fosse

1994

Jon Fosse

2000

Jon Fosse

1995

Jon Fosse

2004

Jon Fosse

1997

Jon Fosse

2005

Jon Fosse

1998
Dream of Autumn

Jon Fosse

1998

Jon Fosse

1996
Strong Wind

Jon Fosse

2021

Jon Fosse

1996

Jon Fosse

1999

Jon Fosse

2005

Jon Fosse

2006
Rambuku

Jon Fosse

2007

Jon Fosse

2004

Jon Fosse

2000

Jon Fosse

2000

Jon Fosse

2000

Jon Fosse

2001

Jon Fosse

Sea
2014
A Shining

Jon Fosse

2023
Trilogy

Jon Fosse

2014