Septology

WINNER OF THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE2022 International Booker Prize, Finalist2022 National Book Award, Finalist2022 National Book Critics Circle Award, FinalistNew York Times Editors’ ChoiceNamed a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and BookforumSelected as one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York TimesWhat makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another? Asle, an ageing painter and widower who lives alone on the southwest coast of Norway, is reminiscing about his life. His only friends are his neighbour, Åsleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers—two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions about death, love, light and shadow, faith and hopelessness. The three volumes of Jon Fosse's Septology—The Other Name, I is Another, and A New Name—collected in for the first time in this limited hardcover edition, are a transcendent exploration of the human condition, and a radically other reading experience—incantatory, hypnotic, and utterly unique. Read more