Tarjei Vesaas
The Ice Palace

Unn walks too far into the frozen waterfall, and throughout one long winter, Siss fights the frost of her own mind. The girls feel early on that there are ties between them that they can’t explain. They are two of one, and one in two.

This is a novel about awakening emotions, about being alone and feeling like a stranger in the world, about being a child and standing on the threshold of an adult consciousness, and about the dark borderland of the mind where numerous forces, dreams ands desires struggle for power.

Tarjei Vesaas

Gyldendal Norsk Forlag

Tarjei Vesaas was a modernist who maintained a degree of technical experimentation throughout his work. He is regarded as one of Scandinavia’s foremost twentieth-century writers and was the first Norwegian to win the Nordic Council's Prize.

Tarjei Vesaas was born on a farm in Vinje in 1897. He was the oldest of three sons, and as the oldest he was entitled to inherit the farm. But Vesaas understood early that he was set out to become a writer.

Vesaas started writing poems and articles for newspapers at the age of 23. The year after, he won a price for one of his poems, which led him to send some of his work to a publisher. He got turned down several times, but in 1922 he won a contest for short stories, and shortly after this, his first novel, The Children of Humans (Menneskebonn, 1923) was published.

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His novels have been translated into 28 languages

Other titles

NOVELS
The Seed (Kimen), 1940
The House in the Dark (Huset i mørkret), 1945
The Bleaching Yard (Bleikeplassen), 1946
The Tower (Tårnet), 1948
The Signal (Signalet), 1950
Spring Night (Vårnatt), 1954
The Birds (Fuglane), 1957
The Fire (Brannen), 1961
The Ice Palace (Is-slottet), 1963
The Bridges (Bruene), 1966
The Boat in the Evening (Båten om kvelden), 1968

SHORT STORIES
The Winds (Vindane), 1952
One Fine Day (Ein vakker dag), 1959

POETRY
The Sources (Kjeldene), 1946
The Game and the Lightning (Leiken og lynet), 1947
The Wanderer's Reward (Lykka for ferdesmenn), 1949
Land of Hidden Fires (Løynde eldars land), 1953
Be New, Dream of Ours (Ver ny, vår draum), 1956
Life at the Stream (Liv ved straumen), 1970