“A tall, stork-like man” enters the night train on the central station in Oslo. He is the 32 year old composer Ask Burle, and he is heading home to bury his younger brother Balder. And there, in the shaking, darkened sleeping car, Ask starts searching his memories of lost times. From here, the captivating story of one of the greatest Norwegian post-war novels unfolds. It is a vital and tender knock-out of a novel.
Agnar Mykle
Fred Monclair
Agnar Mykle (1915-1994) is one of the most celebrated and controversial authors in modern Norwegian literature. His most famous novel is THE SONG OF THE RED RUBY, which was confiscated on the city court’s order in 1956 due to its allegedly obscene, sexually explicit content. The verdict was overturned the year after by the Supreme Court.
Born in Trondheim in 1915, Mykle worked for two years as a school teacher in North Norway, before moving to Bergen to study economics at the newly founded Norwegian School of Economics. In 1942 he married Jane.
Mykle had his first short story printed in a magazine in 1945, and made his debut three years later with the short story collection The Rope Ladder, which was well received. In the meantime he had studied puppetryin Paris together with Jane (they published a book on puppetry in 1954). Mykle was starting to gain fame, also for his newspaper writings.
Rights sold to
Germany, Ullstein
Other titles
NOVELS
The Hotel Room (Tyven, tyven skal du hete), 1951
Lasso Round the Moon (Lasso rundt fru Luna), 1954
The Song of the Red Ruby (Sangen om den røde rubin), 1956
Rubicon, 1965
SHORT STORIES
The Rope Ladder (Taustigen), 1948
I Don't Care, the Boy Said (Jeg er like glad, sa gutten), 1952
Cross My Heart (Kors på halsen), 1958
Largo, 1969
Foreign rights
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