Tomas Espedal
Bergeners

Drawn between his home town and the outer world, Espedal writes Bergeners.

The narrative starts in New York City, at the swanky Standard Hotel and ends in Askanischer Hof in Berlin, a hotel that has seen better days. Between these metropolises we find Bergen. Bergen’s streets and buildings, and the people who walk the streets and live in the buildings. Using Joyce’s Dubliners as a discrete guide, Tomas Espedal wanders through the streets of his hometown.
He takes notes, reflects, writes a diary and draws portraits of the city and its inhabitants. He writes tales and short stories, meets fellow writers and other residents of Bergen. He listens to anecdotes and writes letters. He is drawn away from Bergen, and he is drawn towards Bergen. He writes Bergeners, a book about Bergen, and about life, in a way no one else could have written the book.

His prose is, as in all his books, magical.

VG

Not a page goes by without startling the Reader.

Aftenposten

Everything is poeticised and beautified in an Espedalian way, stubbornly mythologizing, alluring in an idiosyncratic, un-modern way.

Klassekampen

Tomas Espedal

Tomas Espedal
Jakob Dall

Tomas Espedal (born 1961) made his debut in 1988. A graduate of the University of Bergen, he has published both novels and short prose collections. In 1991 he won an award from the joint Radio P2/Book Club Novelists´ competition for She and I. Founder of the Bergen International Poetry Festival, Espedal’s later works explore the relationship between the novel and other genres such as essays, letters, diaries, autobiographies and travelogue. Espedal’s Tramp (Or the art of living a wild and poetic life) (2006), Against Art (2009) and Bergeners (2013) have all been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize. The author was awarded the Literary Critics’ Prize in 2009.

Rights sold to

Denmark, BATZER
France, Actes Sud
Germany, Matthes & Seitz
Sweden, Lindelöws
UK/US/India, Seagull

Other titles

The Year (2016)
Against Nature (2011)
Against Art (2009)
Tramp. Or the art of living a wild and poetic life. (2006)
Letters. An attempt. (2005)

Foreign rights

Gyldendal Agency
P.O. Box 6860 St. Olavs plass
NO-0130 Oslo
Tel: +47 957 81 640
[email protected]
http://eng.gyldendal.no

Awards

Nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize

Edited September 19, 2019 by Gyldendal Agency