The Fiddler Girl

Jon Fosse

Original title: Spelejenta
Publisher: Samlaget, 2009
Genre: Children.
Pages: 41 pages

“’Oh no,’ said the little fiddler girl. ‘I don’t think I can get any further,’ she said, and her eyes became wet. ‘There’s a mountain between me and my father,’ she said.”

Jon Fosse’s most recent children’s book is a fairy tale about a clairvoyant fiddler girl. The fiddler girl sees in her hand that her father has been stranded and sits wearied and worn on an island. She takes her fiddle and embarks on a journey to find and comfort him. She encounters many challenges along the way, and then the fiddle becomes a good companion.

A magical children’s book by Jon Fosse, with stunning illustrations by Øyvind Torseter.

“If the eyes of a dice should speak of artistic quality and ambition, this certainly deserves a seven.”

May Grethe Lerum, VG

“Reading the text is like hearing my grandfather narrate fairytales… [the illustrations] take my breath away.”

Kristine Isaksen, Bergens Tidende

Jon Fosse

Photo: Tom A. Kolstad

Jon Fosse is widely considered one of the world’s most important living writers. Born in 1959 in Strandebarm, a small village in the western part of Norway, he lives today in the Grotten, an honorary residence, as well as in Hainburg, Austria, and Frekhaug, Norway.

Fosse has received numerous prizes, both in Norway and internationally, and he is mentioned increasingly often as a likely contender for the Nobel Prize. He has currently finished a major seven-volume work of what he calls “slow prose”. Septology consists of three volumes: The Other Name: Septology I – II was published in 2019 to international praise and longlisted for the Booker International Prize. I Is Another: Septology III – V was published autumn 2020 and A New Name: Septology VI – VII in September 2021.