A Death In the Family
by
Karl Ove Knausgaard
Translated from the Norweigian by Don Bartlett
Karl Ove Knausgaard's A Death In The Family is an experiment that has paid off handsomely in his native Norway, where the author has emerged as one of the leaders of his country's new generation of literary talent.
The first of a mighty six-volume series totalling over three thousand pages, Knausgaard's ultra-realist form of writing blurs traditional boundaries to such an extent that it impels the reader to question the very notion of fiction.
A Death In The Family is a story about a young boy - Karl Ove - and his struggle to cope with his entry into adolescence in a family dominated by a distant father of whom he is both envious and terrified.
When his father dies suddenly, thrusting the narrator into an adult world for which he is scarcely ready, he must confront the contradictions which crowd his mind over his father's death, and quickly adapt.
This plot is secondary to Knausgaard's observational brilliance, as he picks over what at first seem to be the most inconsequential details of his past in order to reconcile his future.
It is an extraordinary undertaking, and one not without controversy - as Knausgaard's family and friends would certainly attest. They have unwittingly found themselves at the centre of a story about the rise of Norway's latest literary sensation.
Publisher: Harvill Secker
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