Herbjørg Wassmo
A Hundred Years

A Hundred Years is a novel about the lives of Sara Susanne, Elida and Hjørdis, Herbjørg Wassmo´s great grandmother, grandmother and mother. It is about the men they wanted and the men they got, and about the children they gave birth to. It is also the story of a little girl who hides in the barn to avoid him. She has a yellow pencil that she sharpens with a whittling knife.

This girl was born in 1942, exactly a hundred years after her great grandmother, the strong-willed Sara Susanne who served as a model for the portrait of the angel in the altar piece that today stands in Lofoten Cathedral. A Hundred Years is the tale of these women, of their toil and deprivation, of liberty and their longing for another existence.

The narrator was born the same year as the author, and she gives us access to a secret that sheds light over the connection between life and fiction. Motifs and themes from almost all of Wassmo´s oeuvre are collected here, all carried forth by a deep human knowledge that ensures that the fictive characters never seem one dimensional

Main Selection in the BNB Book Club and the Bestseller Club (CappelenDamm).

Herbjørg Wassmo

Photo: Rolf M. Aagaard

Herbjørg Wassmo has earned her position and popularity in Norway and abroad through her ability as a powerful storyteller with a special care for the exposed and vulnerable characters. She made her début in 1976 with a collection of poetry. Her breakthrough came with the first of three novels about Tora, The House with the Blind Glass Window.

She is translated into 24 languages and has received The Nordic Literary Prize (1987), the Norwegian Litterary Critics’ Prize (1981) and the Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize (1990) amongst others.

Rights sold to

Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Russia

Other titles

SELECTED PREVIOUS TITLES
Huset med den blinde glassveranda, novel 1981.
Det stumme rommet, novel 1983.
Hudløs himmel, novel 1986.
Dinas bok, novel 1989.
Lykkens sønn, novel 1992.
Karnas arv, novel 1997.
Det sjuende møte, novel 2000.
Flukten fra Frank, novel 2003.
Et glass melk takk, novel 2006.

Foreign rights

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Edited December 18, 2017 by Gyldendal Agency