Tor Åge Bringsværd HOLY MACKEREL

847 people is hit by a mysterious illness, and they all see a huge mackerel hovering over the square. Everyone infected by the so-called Mackerel syndrome are from the same quarter of the city, and they appear to live in two different worlds. The therapists sent to speak with them can interact as usual, but they are also surrounded by other creatures – invisible to everyone else but themselves. Amongst the 847 people is Silas. Everyone who knows him says he is an 'especially interesting case'. He can speak to the dead. Or are they really dead?

The infected quarter is blocked with lazer barbed wire, while the rest of the society try to figure out the cause of the illness. What will the future be, for the sick and for the seemingly healhty people? Which of the realities will prevail in the end?

Holy Mackerel is an entertaining, wise and imaginative science-fiction novel, by Norway's most influential author of fable prose.

Tor Åge Bringsværd (b. 1939) has received many awards, as a writer and as a playwright. His works have been translated into 23 languages and his theatrical works have been staged in twelve countries. Bringsværd writes for all ages.

Nilsen CURSE OF THE SMALL TOWN

Curse of the small town is a “Nordic gothic”-novel inspired by the American Southern Gothic genre, which takes place in Berlevåg in Finnmark. Here the midnight sun shines all day and night, and they’re approaching polar nights, which always affects moods, and the snow which lights up the landscape.

Tonje gets a job at Agnes Hansen’s newly established astrology phoneline. Slowly, but surely, Tonje and the other inhabitants are drawn into a psychological game where the difference between fantasy and reality is washed away.

Curse of the small town shows us a world where things may not be exactly as they seem at first glance.

Eskil Skjeldal THE FUNERAL HOME

Olav runs a funeral home in a relatively small place in Northern Norway, which he’s been doing for more than fifteen years. Every corpse in the area ends up with him. Olav is single, tidy, honest, and professional. When meeting grieving people there are two pitfalls, Olav believes, and somewhere between these two pitfalls is where the ideal approach lies. The same is true for people’s emotional lives: when dealing with strong emotions you can be either too warm or too cold.

Olav’s neighbour, Per, disappears at sea. The boat shows up empty, and it affects Olav in a way he is not used to. When someone else he knows, Markus, dies of a cardiac arrest way too young, the tears come. It bothers Olav, and it’s as if something is coming loose inside him.

The Funeral Home reflects on several exercises of grief, not least that of the owner of a funeral home. How can one be human when confronted with death, and remain standing tall?

‘Masterly visual depictions … The Funeral Home is linguistically beautiful in its combination of precise and poetic renderings … a most readable novel on many grounds.’

VÅRT LAND

Eskil Skjeldal (b. 1974) has previously published several non-fiction books. Father’s Garden, Mother’s House is his first work of fiction, and came out in 2023.

Erling Simon Vaaler (debutant) THE NARCISISST

Jim’s grandma is dying, and he has to clean the empty house. This process puts him in touch with a childhood that wasn’t necessarily happy, and which made him, despite his talent, quit playing music, the thing he loved the most, when he was 15 years old. His childhood is well documented by his father, an internationally recognised photo artist. His father’s pictures of Jim as a child shows Jim and his older brother, Aksel, in scenes characterised by jealousy and fighting over their father’s favour. Jim’s artistic gifts made him and his father very close, but the weeks alone in his grandma’s house leads Jim to find signs of how his father’s actions poisoned his relationship with his older brother.

Narsissisten

130 x 205 mm

Helene Alice Nortvedt (debutant) RED DANGER

Evy is 27 years old, an age where many have managed to establish themselves and sorted out their lives, but she’s only managed to isolate herself from others. Something pulls her back to her teenage years when her mother’s relationship with Rune broke down. Evy hasn’t seen Rune in 15 years. Rune with the golden, wavy hair, brown leather jacket and red shoes with white laces. At least that’s what he looks like in her memories. Is she romanticising him? Rune has another family now, and Evy knows where he lives. Several times she goes to his house and sees the lights on through the windows. One day she gets in touch with Rune. It doesn’t turn out the way she imagined. But what did she imagine?

Røde fare

130 x 205 mm / 192 pages

Helene Alice Nortvedt (b. 1990) is born and raised in Oslo. She’s studied Writing at Westerdals in Oslo and is finishing a master’s degree in Literary Form at Gothenburg University. Red Danger is her first novel.

Nadine

EVA/IDA

Eva/Ida is a novel about a relationship between two women in their early 20s. The story is told from Ida’s perspective, an insecure, introverted girl from the countryside as well as an ambitious biology student. Eva is an extroverted, self-absorbed, ambitious, sloppy and hedonistic bisexual student of Art Direction. Eva and Ida play tennis, go to parties, fall asleep in other people’s gardens, go to Risør to fish for crabs, move in together, and try to navigate their lives around a power balance that’s constantly being challenged by one another’s ambition and competitive instincts. Ida also has a mental disorder she struggles with, which gets in the way of her goals, her plans and her relationship with Eva.

Cornelius

Murmur

Lyder Alving buys a flat to live in with Rebecca. But shortly after Lyder realises he isn’t able to live with Rebecca and he impulsively moves out. At a funeral a few months later, he meets the more stable Hedvig, and a quiet love triangle unfolds. Lyder is stuck between Rebecca’s turbulent lifestyle, and the monotone, continuous existence of Hedvig.

Murmur depicts how the day to day can look like with bipolar disorder. Instead of focusing on the extremities, the author puts the focus on the thoughts that arrive alongside the mood swings, and the constant doubt regarding which life you’re supposed to be living: A life full of mood swings, or the stable life that society appears to demand.

Brynjulf Jung Tjønn WHITE NORWEGIAN MAN

White Norwegian Man is a touching and important book about a subject many experience every day – namely racism. In this poetry collection the author Brynjulf Jung Tjønn depicts his own experiences of racism.

Brynjulf Jung Tjønn was adopted from South Korea to Norway as a child and has always noticed that he looks different, as he puts it himself. With the pandemic – and the awareness around racism and Asian hate – he got new and painful perspectives about his own background and upbringing.

White Norwegian Man is about Norway and the racism many ignore, both the hidden type and the visible one. And not to mention the lonely human who hopes for understanding and finding somewhere to feel at home.

NORWAY'S BESTSELLING POETRY COLLECTION IN 2022

‘What a clenched fist of a book this is! …. Among the most powerful things I’ve read. Everyone should read it.’

VG, 

‘A gripping poetry collection about racism. … a tragic seriousness, often wrapped in witty turns of phrase. … I would recommend it to any young adult and up, but also for use in anti-racist work and in classrooms.’

FRAMTIDA, 

‘Poetic protest against racism. … one poem in particular is so compelling and gripping I think it will remain forever in Norwegian literature … a wistful, vital and necessary contribution to contemporary literature.’

AFTENPOSTEN

Rights sold to: Denmark (Straarup & co), France (Gallimard) if only i had had blonde hair if only i had had blue or green eyes if only i had been a white norwegian man what kind of problems would i have had then? i have thought about this every single day ever since i was little and stood in the mirror and wondered why i had such yellow skin why my hair was so black why my eyes were so narrow why i didn’t look like anyone i went to school with didn’t look like my cousins didn’t look like my parents why should i among five million norwegians look like i am chinese?

Brynjulf Jung Tjønn (b. 1980) made his literary debut with the novel I came to love in 2002. He has since published a number of books for both children and adults. His novel for Young Adults, You are so Beautiful, won the Brage Prize in 2013.

Linn Strømsborg NEVER, EVER, EVER

«I am 35 years old. I do not want children.

It’s not something I talk to other people about. It is something that I am ashamed of, a topic I avoid; take long verbal detours around. When my friends talk about having kids, I change the topic. I do not want to be too certain or unbending, because I might suddenly wake up one day and find that I have become one of them, an ordinary woman in her thirthies wanting to get pregnant, wanting a family, wanting to expand my life, my body and my heart to make room for more than myself. You are allowed to change your mind.»

The main character in Linn Strømsborg´s novel Never, ever, ever has never wanted children. She has been living with Philip for eight years, and they have agreed to not have children – up until now. Because maybe Philip might want to become a dad after all? And while her two best friends are expecting their first child, and her mother is constantly nagging about grandchildren, and her everyday life is full of parents with toddlers and births and the struggle of others to have enough time for it all, she is firm in her life and her choice about not having children.

Never, ever, ever is a novel about why we have children, and why we do not have children. It is the story about choosing something other than what is expected of you, but at the same time wanting a normal life.

English Sample Translation Available

‘The story is elegantly composed, at times cinematic. Strømsborg has written rare and energized prose about a timely and somewhat taboo topic.’ VG

Linn Strømsborg (b. 1986) made her debut 2009 with the novel Roskilde, the story of a group of young people at a music festival, and followed up with the chap book The Øya Festival in the same year. She has since written two novels about the main character Eva; Furuset in 2012 and You're not gonna die in 2016. She is one of the most interesting young voices in contemporary Norwegian fiction today.

Rights sold to: Denmark (Turbine), Serbia (Cigoja Stampa), Germany (DuMont), Poland (ArtRage Sp.), Germany (Olga film), Hungary (Libertine)