Vaim

Jon Fosse NORLA Selected

Original title: Vaim
Publisher: Samlaget, 2025
Genre: Novel
Pages: 181 pages

Vaim is the first of three books about the fictional small town of Vaim: Vaim, Vaim Hotel, and The Vaim Weekly. Each book is about different characters.

As Vaim opens, Jatgeir has come from Vaim to the big city, Bjørgvin, on his boat, Eline. He wants to buy a needle and thread but is cheated – twice. Yet strangely, he finds and comes home with Eline herself, the long-lost love of his teenage years, who has left her husband Frank. The story of this love triangle is a book about little boats and big boats, love and death, passive men and an unusually determined woman. There’s no use trying to argue with Eline.

Foreign rights

Brazilian Portuguese: Companhia das Letras
Catalan: Galaxia Gutenberg
Chinese (simplified): Horizon Books
Croatian: Naklada Ljevak
Danish: Batzer & Co
Dutch: Uitgeverij Oevers
English (UK): Fitzcarraldo
English (North America): Transit Books
German: Rowohlt
Hebrew: Hakibbutz Hameuchad
Hungarian: Kalligram
Italian: La Nave di Teseo
Korean: Munhakdongne
Polish: ArtRage
Portuguese: Cavalo de Ferro
Spanish: Penguin Random House
Swedish: Albert Bonniers

True to himself, yet somehow renewed. Nobel laureate Jon Fosse pulls it off once again […] This is feel-good Fosse with a twist.

NRK, 6/6 stars

Nobel winner Fosse centers this spectacular story of loneliness, love, and death on three linked characters living in small-town Norway… This is unforgettable.

Publisher’s Weekly, starred review

…a new novel that captivates the reader. An original story about men without willpower, where time and space are relative dimensions.

Bergens Tidende, 6/6 stars

How do you follow up a Nobel Prize? Jon Fosse knows the answer. […] All the repetitions, the language coiling and winding through constant echoes, almost like wild ivy in literary form. And then, of course, the recognizable doppelgänger motif… Oh yes, this is hardcore Jon Fosse!

VG, 5/6 stars

Three residents of a coastal Norwegian town ponder life, love, and what might’ve been… A fine portrait of uncertainty.

Kirkus Reviews

…his most mischievous release yet — a blend of romance, ghost story, and noir.

Dagens Næringsliv

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.