As clear and relentless as the cold
air, Love unfolds over one winter’s evening. Single mother Vibeke and
her son Jon have just moved to a small, remote town in the north of Norway.
Tomorrow Jon will be nine. As Vibeke gets changed after work, Jon wonders what
surprises his mother has prepared for him. He leaves the house certain she will
make him a cake. But preoccupied with concerns of her own, she too ventures
out. Inextricably linked yet desperately at odds, mother and son make their
lonely ways through the unforgiving night.
Beautifully translated into English by
Martin Aitken, this edition is the twenty-eighth international publication of Love.
Hanne Ørstavik’s astonishing grasp of human fragility and her economy of
form power this acknowledged masterpiece of Norwegian literature.