FULL ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF ECHOES OF THE CITY I AND II AVAILABLE

Lars Saabye Christensen

Echoes Of The City

Book 1: Maj and Ewald

Echoes of the City is a grand epic work by Lars Saabye Christensen, which centres around the Kristoffersen family in West Oslo just after the war. Ewald works in an advertisement bureau who are hired for the campaign of Oslo’s 900-years anniversary, while Maj gets involves with Red Cross. Their son Jesper promises his best friend Jostein to be his ears, after Jostein’s hearing is damaged in a traffic accident.

Put your ear to the conch and listen: Listen to the sound of Oslo. See the streets that bind it together, see the people who live in them.

‘On par with Stefan Zweig and Marcel Proust. [...] A stroke of genius. The Oslo trilogy is a human comedy that you chuckle your way through, until it hurts. On par with 'The World of Yesterday' and ‘In Search of Lost Time’’ POLITIKEN

Lars Saabye Christensen is one of Norway’s most beloved and prolific authors. Despite being known for his long novels, his debut book was the poetry collection History of Gly (1976), for which he was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas prize. His first novel, The Amateur, was published in 1977 and Saabye Christensen often says all his novels could’ve had this title. Humans who struggle with inner insecurities and lack of a directory of their own lives, who are not professionally well-prepared in all of life’s situations, but instead make wrong choices and appear clumsy – these are the people he has an ever-recurring love for in his books.

His big breakthrough novel was Beatles (1984), which is one of the bestselling literary titles in Norway ever and which new generations of youth keep falling in love with. In 2001 his epic major work The Half Brother was published, an extraordinarily generous and moving novel, which follows a family over a period of many years and through all stages of life. The Half Brother became an international success and won the Nordic Council Literature Prize. Between 2017 and 2021 the series Echoes of the City was published, which was met with exceptional criticism and reached a large readership. Saabye Christensen has written over 70 titles, won numerous prizes and awards, and has been translated into 36 languages.

Rights sold to: Denmark (Grif), Egypt (Al Kotob Kahn), Norway (Theatre rights), Poland (Wydawnictwo Literackie Sp. z.o.o.), UK (MacLehose Press) Czech Republic (Albatros Media / Kniha Zlin), Germany (btb Luchterhand)

Eivind Hofstad Evjemo THE NEW SEASON

The great new novel about Norway, love and life as a farmer, and moving into a new time

Hans Junior is a farmer at a dairy farm, which he runs with his father. The milk truck arrives. The grass grows and is harvested. Winters pass into spring. But when his father passes away, Junior ends up being responsible on his own. A single man in the house and a lot of animals in the barn. One day the agricultural inspector Sylvi stops by to inspect the farming and animal welfare. She gets a cup of coffee when she’s about to drive away, as well as an invite to return. Shortly after, she moves in.

The cows in the barn start changing their behaviour, the Sitka spruce between the farm and the sea grows tighter – the nature is changing in challenging ways, and Sylvi and Hans do what they can. Sylvi is affected by an unexplainable illness, and goes to their neighbour Siriporn, who and offers massages from a room at the farm. Siriporn and and her husband Johan’s property borders ancient monastery ruins, and Siriporn has big plans for alternative operations.

The New season is both realistic and apocalyptic. It is an ode to labour, and to the love that no one can see. It is the first book in a planned trilogy.

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO GIVE UP 'Beautiful and gripping about everyday heroism … a beautiful love story. … Eivind Hofstad Evjemo is an artist of language.'

STAVANGER AFTENBLAD ✩

Eivind Hofstad Evjemo (b. 1983) studied writing at Litterær Gestaltning in Gothenburg, Sweden. For his debut novel Wake me if I fall asleep from 2009 he won the Tarjei Vesaas’ First Writers Award. For his second novel, The last You will see is a face of Love from 2012 he recieved The Young Critics Prize, the UT-award and Writer of the year from Trøndelag County. The novel We Welcome You from 2014 received wonderful reviews. In 2015 he was listed as one of the ten best norwegian authors under 35, by weekly newspaper Morgenbladet and Norsk Litteraturfestival.

Rights sold to: France (Editions Grasset)

THE CURSE OF THE SITKA SPRUCE

'Hofstad Evjemo writes well. In a tactile manner. It smells strongly in the dairy building, the fireweed looms outside the windows. At the absence of rain, you can feel the thirst scrape your palate. […] It’s told in a lively manner, with drive in its sentences. […] it’s a joy to read The New Season.»

BOK365.NO ✩

PRACTICAL FARMING FOR THE APOCALYPSE

«… timeless picture of the apocalypse, which also hold mythical qualities. […] Some of these renderings are close to the striking horror which can be found in the novels of Cormac McCarthy, without ever losing the work and days of the farmer from sight.»

MORGENBLADET

A Gem Of A Novel

«The New Season is a highlight among this autumn’s titles, and will be remembered as one of the bestNorwegian novels of the year.»

ADRESSEAVISA ✩

Excerpt from The New Season:

The farmer waited for her in the yard. A regular, semi-tall man wearing a barn suit. Thin, dry hair which the wind created some movement in. He gave her a careful look, this uninvited guest – the inspector who had forced her way in. The golden-brown workers’ gloves which peeked out of his pockets made her think of tinder fungus (she had gone to Brekke the day before and stumbled upon an overturned tree trunk which a lot of such fungi). She had already noted that the farmyard was well-kept – nothing muddied or any broken equipment, no old boat motors in piles of rust, no potato boxes with calf carcasses – which in itself meant there was direction and plans for this farm. But she made sure to park her car flush with the exit and left her key in the ignition. The guidelines said two inspectors should attend inspections; one to do the talking with the farmer, one to collect the necessary information. Sylvi had maybe been silly when she came alone, but she brushed it off. Her colleague was sick, nothing to do about that. Sylvi lifted her camera – fully-charged battery – opened the door and went outside.

Are you Hans?

According to the papers he was thirty-eight-years-old, single. Had several times been awarded the Silver Cow award for deliveries of so-called “elite milk”. During previous inspections Hans Senior had mostly been the one to speak. The farmer’s father. That’s right, he said.

Then she said: I’m here for an unannounced inspection. She took a deep breath in and smiled, tried to read the man’s face and the little grimaces which appeared when the word inspection was pronounced, but he only turned slightly sideways, put one finger over one nostril and blew out (she had to be patient).

Kjersti Halvorsen I’M THE ONE WHO CAN HELP YOU

Psychologist Edvin works at the Kvervel Manor. He is engaged and soon to be a father for the first time. One day, he gets a new patient, André. Edvin knows him from his childhood but hesitates to tell his boss about their relationship. He is ashamed and unable to say more than ‘we went to school together’, which really doesn’t cover it. Edvin was bullied, and André was the bully. Now they have to deal with each other on a daily basis.

Why did André start taking drugs? Did Edvin have anything to do with what happened? Why was life so cruel to André but kind to Edvin? Or has life been kind to him?

Kjersti Halvorsen writes about complicated topics such as power, addiction, revenge and reconciliation in an entertaining way.

English Sample Translation Available

‘A brilliant psychological thriller. […] There is no doubt that this overflows with literary quality.’

FRAMTIDA.NO

‘[…] this book has everything I want, and then some.’

STAVANGER AFTENBLAD

‘Wow, Kjersti Halvorsen can surely create and write. Her second book does not disappoint. [...]’

Kjersti Halvorsen (b. 1993) grew up in Lier. She has attended author-studies at the college in Bø and studied psychology at the University of Oslo. She made her debut in 2019 with the novel Ida Takes Charge, a book that earned her a nomination to the Tarjei Vesaas debut prize.

Rights sold to: Denmark (Straarup & co), Sold to Norway (TV-rights, Anagram Norge)