Book description
Bjørn Hansen, a respectable town treasurer, has just turned fifty
and is horrified by the thought that chance has ruled his life.
Eighteen years ago he left his wife and their two-year-old son for his
mistress, who persuaded him to start afresh in a small, provincial
town and to dabble in amateur dramatics. In time that relationship
also faded, and after four years of living alone Bjørn contemplates
an extraordinary course of action that will change his life for ever.
He finds a fellow conspirator in Dr Schiøtz, who has a secret of
his own and offers to help Bjørn carry his preposterous and dangerous
plan through to its logical conclusion. However, the sudden
reappearance of his son both fills Bjørn with new hope and
complicates matters. The desire to gamble with his comfortable
existence proves irresistible, however, taking him to Vilnius in
Lithuania, where very soon he cannot tell whether he's tangled up in a
game or reality.
Novel 11, Book 18, for which Dag Solstad received the
Norwegian Critics' Prize for Literature, is an uncompromising and
concentrated existential novel that accommodates all of the author's
fundamental themes.
Dag Solstad has been a central figure in Norwegian literature since
his debut in 1965 and is now considered to be the country's leading
contemporary author. His work has consistently won critical acclaim and
numerous Norwegian literary prizes. His first novel to be translated
into English,
Shyness and Dignity
, was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2006.
