SELECTED TITLE

Lars Saabye Christensen
Kitchen

Kitchen is a warm, wistful and piercing novel about the Minde family in Vika in the 1970s – a district where Oslo's slums are still close to everyday life. When her son Kaj moves out, Gerd Minde is left in a home where silence reveals more than words ever did. Life goes on as before, but something has moved in between the walls: the question of who we are when the roles around us fall away.

With precise humor, dark undertones and an eye for the small cracks in the ordinary, Saabye Christensen writes a story about loneliness, about who we are and everything that happens when the dice is rolled – and no one quite dares to see where it lands.

‘It fills me with joy to read Lars Saabye Christensen. [...] The author's new novel Kitchen contains one of the finest portraits of women I have read in a very long time.’

VG, 6/6 stars

‘Yes, there are many good Norwegian authors. But when Saabye Christensen is at his best, as in parts of the series Echoes of the City (Byens spor) and as in the short story The Hare (Haren) and as in the hot-off-the-press novel Kitchen (Kjøkken), then he is, in my opinion, in a class of his own.’

Nettavisen, 6/6 stars

Lars Saabye Christensen

Photo: Lina Hindrum

Lars Saabye Christensen (b. 1953) is one of Norway’s most beloved and prolific authors. Despite being best known for his long novels, Saabye is also a poet. His debut book was the poetry collection History of Gly (1976), for which he was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas prize. His first novel, The Amateur, was published in 1977 and Saabye Christensen often says all his novels could’ve had this title.

His big breakthrough novel was Beatles (1984), which is one of the biggest selling literary titles in Norway ever and which new generations of youth keep falling in love with. In 2001 his epic major work The Half Brother was published, an extraordinarily generous and moving novel, which follows a family over a period of many years and through all stages of life. It became an international success and won the Nordic Council Literature Prize. Saabye Christensen has written over 70 titles, won numerous prizes and awards, and has been translated into 36 languages.