Tuesday, December 3, 2019

The Hills Reply

The Hills Reply is a collection of short vignettes by Tarjei Vesaas, translated from Norwegian by Elizabeth Rokkan. Originally published (in Norwegian) in 1968, this reformat and re-release in English is due out 10th Dec 2019. It's 272 pages and will be available in ebook and paperback formats.

These are stark introspective and poetic scenes. There is no index, no table of contents and no precisely discernible order to the collection.  There is no plot and no real narrative arc. The translation work is perfect but in no way invisible. The prose has a distinct Norwegian flavor. It's pared down and spare, efficient and quite beautiful.

This would be an excellent selection for a number of academic settings such as foreign literature in translation, modern Scandinavian literature/poetry, possibly even some language translation work. It would also be a great pick for people who appreciate and seek out freeform poetry, modern literature, etc.

Four stars for me, five for lovers of fine literature (which I am also, but this one was so full of sentence fragments and poetic 'bits' that it was a hard slog for me).

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.




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