Book description
Early one morning Arvid finds himself standing outside the bookshop
where he used to work, drunk, dirty, with two fractured ribs, and no
idea how he came to be there. He does not even recognise his face in
the mirror. It is as if he has dropped out of the flow of life.
Slowly, uncontrollably, the memories return to him, and Arvid
struggles under the weight of the tragedy which has blighted his life
- the death of his parents and younger siblings in an accident six
years previously.
At times almost unbearably moving, In the Wake is nonetheless
suffused with unexpected blessings: humour, wisdom, human compassion,
and a sense of the perpetual beauty of the natural world.
By the winner of both the IMPAC Award and the Independent
Foreign Fiction Prize.
Per Petterson was born in Oslo in 1952 and worked for several years
as an unskilled labourer, a bookseller, a writer and a translator until
he made his literary debut in 1987 with the short story collection
Ashes in my Mouth, Sand in my Shoes,
which was widely acclaimed by critics. He made his literary
breakthrough in 2003 with the novel
Out Stealing Horses
, which has been translated into 40 languages so far and won many
prizes, including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the
Independent
Foreign Fiction Prize.
