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Merethe Lindstrøm
The Anatomy of Birds

A writer has withdrawn to her study at Yew Tree Cottage, in a tiny English village. A young boy comes to build an aviary – a large outdoor birdcage. In the evening she drives him to a field where he claims to live, although there is no house there. While the boy is putting up the aviary, she creates a connection through the text she is writing, drawing a line that resembles the roads through the English landscape, creating a junction between the past and the present. When she looks in the mirror, she often sees her mother, and sometimes her daughters. An incident in her own childhood in Norway in the 1960s becomes a point of departure for understanding.

The Anatomy of Birds is written in lucid, vibrant prose, which hovers above a dark green landscape.

Nominated for the 2019 P2 Listeners’ Novel Prize

'Merethe Lindstrøm is a first-rate writer. You’ll hardly find a single sentence that hasn’t been finely crafted in her new novel (…) a rich novel completely without dull points'

Aftenposten

'In The Anatomy of Birds, Merethe Lindstrøm is more seductive than ever (…) Merethe Lindstrøm has given us another great read.'

Dagsavisen

Merethe Lindstrøm

André Løyning

Merethe Lindstrøm (b. 1963) made her debut in 1983 with a collection of short stories, and has since published a number of short stories, novels and a children’s book. Her novel The Stone Collectors (1996) won her two awards, and she was also nominated for the prestigeous 2008 Nordic Council’s Literary Prize and the Norwegian Critics’ Award for her short story collection The Guests. In 2008, she was awarded the Dobloug Prize for her entire literary work. For her novel Days in the History of Silence, she was awarded both the Nordic Council Literature Prize and the Critics’ Prize.