Trilogy

Jon Fosse NORLA Selected

Original title: Trilogien: Andvake (2007), Olavs Draumar (2012), Kveldsvævd (2014)
Publisher: Samlaget, 2014
Genre: Novellas
Pages: 239 pages

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The first part of Trilogy, Wakefulness, starts with Alida and Asle who come to Bjørgvin to find work and a place to live. Alida is in the advanced stages of pregnancy, but nobody is willing to give her and her boyfriend shelter. They become more and more discouraged as they walk around in the rain. They carry with them memories of a happier time, from when the two of them met and understood immediately that they were meant for each other. But painful memories also interfere and the echo of the Bible story is strong throughout.
The sequel, Olav’s Dreams, gives us a brilliant portrait of the love that the two young people share, rendered in a simple and potent language. It is a dreamlike, disturbing and claustrophobic story, similar to a Biblical allegory. They decide to leave Bjørgvin, but in WearinessAsle, who now decides to change his name to Olav, returns to Bjørgvin to purchase a gift for Alida. It does not turn out as he had hoped.

Foreign rights

Albanian: Aleph Klub
Arabic (Egypt): Al-Karma
Basque: Elkar Hizkuntzak
Brazilian-Portuguese: Companhia das Letras
Bulgarian: List Publishing
Chinese (simplified): Horizon/Shanghai Century Publishing
Chinese (traditional): Rye Field Publications
Croatian: Treci Trg
Czechia: Kveldsvævd and Olavs draumar: Pistorius & Olsanska
Danish: Batzer & Co
English: Dalkey/Deep Vellum
Estonian: Eesti Raamat
Faroese: Sprotin
German: Rowohlt
Hungarian: Kalligram
Icelandic: Dimma
Italian: La Nave di Teseo
Japanese: Hayakawa
Korean: Saenum
Latvian: Zvaigzne
Lithuanian: Aukso žuvy
Macedonian: Goten
Polish: ArtRage
Romanian: Pandora
Russian: Innostranya Literatura
Portuguese: Cavalo de Ferro
Serbian: Trecí Trg
Slovakian: Modry Peter
Spanish: De Conatus
Swedish: Bonniers
Turkish: Monokl
Ukrainian: Knigolove
Vietnam: ThienTriThuc

Awards

2015 Nordic Council Literature Prize
NORLA Selected Title Spring 2014

Fosse is one of our most distinctive authors, a mystic whose language allows nature to live, a poet who with his voice makes prose sing.

Dagbladet

This author has managed, like few others, to carve out a literary form of his own.

From the citation for the Nordic Council Literary Prize, 2015

Prizewinning books that will still be read in five hundred years.

Danske Politiken

Jon Fosse

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 lives 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.