Dorthe Nors

The first book in English by an acclaimed Danish writer: "beautiful, faceted, haunting stories . . . [from] a rising star" (Junot Díaz) Karate Chop, Dorthe Nors's acclaimed story collection, is the debut book in the collaboration between Graywolf Press and A Public Space. These fifteen compact stories are meticulously observed glimpses of everyday life that expose the ominous lurking under the ordinary. While his wife sleeps, a husband prowls the Internet, obsessed with female serial killers; a bureaucrat tries to reinvent himself, exposing goodness as artifice when he converts to Buddhism in search of power; a woman sits on the edge of the bed where her lover lies, attempting to locate a motive for his violence within her own self-doubt. Shifting between moments of violence (real and imagined) and mundane contemporary life, these stories encompass the complexity of human emotions, our capacity for cruelty as well as compassion. Not so much minimalist as stealthy, Karate Chop delivers its blows with an understatement that shows a master at work.

Stories

Karate Chop

Dorthe Nors follows up her acclaimed story collection Karate Chop with a pair of novellas that playfully chart the aftermath of two very twenty-first-century romances. In "Days," a woman in her late thirties records her life in a series of lists, giving shape to the tumult of her days--one moment she is eating an apple, the next she is on the floor, howling like a dog. As the details accumulate, we experience with her the full range of emotions: anger, loneliness, regret, pain, and also joy, as the lists become a way to understand, connect to, and rebuild her life. In "Minna Needs Rehearsal Space," a novella told in headlines, an avant-garde musician is dumped via text message. Fleeing the indignity of the breakup and friends who flaunt their achievements in life, career, and family, Minna unfriends people on Facebook, listens to Bach, and reads Ingmar Bergman, then decamps to an island near Sweden, "well suited to mental catharsis." A cheeky nod to the listicles and bulletins we scroll through on a daily basis, So Much for That Winter explores how we shape and understand experience, and the disconnection and dislocation that define our twenty-first-century lives, with Nors's unique wit and humor.

Novellas

So Much for That Winter

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2017 A spikily funny, startlingly perceptive and beautifully written novel about modern life by the brightest light in Danish fiction Sonja's over forty, and she's trying to move in the right direction. She's learning to drive. She's joined a meditation group. And she's attempting to reconnect with her sister. But Sonja would rather eat cake than meditate. Her driving instructor won't let her change gear. And her sister won't return her calls. Sonja's mind keeps wandering back to the dramatic landscapes of her childhood - the singing whooper swans, the endless sky, and getting lost barefoot in the rye fields - but how can she return to a place that she no longer recognizes? And how can she escape the alienating streets of Copenhagen? Mirror, Shoulder, Signal is a poignant, sharp-witted tale of one woman's journey in search of herself when there's no one to ask for directions. Dorthe Nors was born in 1970 and studied literature at the University of Aarhus. She is one of the most original voices in contemporary Danish literature. Her short stories have appeared in numerous international periodicals including including The Boston Review and Harpers, and she is the first Danish writer ever to have a story published in the New Yorker. Nors has published four novels so far, in addition to a collection of stories Karate Chop, and a novella Minna needs rehearsal space, also published by Pushkin Press. Karate Chop won the prestigious P. O. Enquist Literary Prize in 2014. She lives in rural Jutland, Denmark.

Mirror, Shoulder, Signal

A celebrated Danish writer explores the unsung histories and geographies of her beloved slice of the world. Me, my notebook and my love of the wild and desolate. I wanted to do the opposite of what was expected of me. It’s a recurring pattern in my life. An instinct. Dorthe Nors’s first nonfiction book chronicles a year she spent traveling along the North Sea coast—from Skagen at the northern tip of Denmark to the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. In fourteen expansive essays, Nors traces the history, geography, and culture of the places she visits while reflecting on her childhood and her family and ancestors’ ties to the region as well as her decision to move there from Copenhagen. She writes about the ritual burning of witch effigies on Midsummer’s Eve; the environmental activist who opposed a chemical factory in the 1950s; the quiet fishing villages that surfers transformed into an area known as Cold Hawaii starting in the 1970s. She connects wind turbines to Viking ships, thirteenth-century church frescoes to her mother’s unrealized dreams. She describes strong waves, sand drifts, storm surges, shipwrecks, and other instances of nature asserting its power over human attempts to ignore or control it. Through a deep, personal engagement with this singular landscape, A Line in the World accesses the universal. Its ultimate subjects are civilization, belonging, and change: changes within one person’s life, changes occurring in various communities today, and change as the only constant of life on Earth.

A Year on the North Sea Coast

A Line in the World

An unsettling, darkly humorous and haunting new short story collection from the Man Booker International Prize shortlisted author.

Wild Swims

A dazzling return to the short story by a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize In fourteen effervescent stories, Dorthe Nors plumbs the depths of the human heart, from desire to melancholy and everything in between. Just as she did in her English-language debut, Karate Chop, Nors slices straight to the core of the conflict in only a few pages. But Wild Swims expands the borders of her gaze, following people as they travel through Copenhagen, London, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and elsewhere. Here are portraits of men and women full of restless longing, people who are often seeking a home but rarely finding it. A lie told during a fraught ferry ride on the North Sea becomes a wound that festers between school friends. A writer at a remote cabin befriends the mother of an ex-lover. Two friends knock doors to solicit fraudulent donations for the cancer society. A woman taken with the idea of wild swims ventures as far as the local swimming pool. These stories have already been featured in the pages of New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Tin House, and A Public Space. They sound the darker tones of human nature and yet find the brighter chords of hope and humor as well. Cutting and offbeat without ever losing its warmth, Wild Swims is a master class in concision and restraint, and a path to living life without either. With Wild Swims Nors’s star will continue to be ascendant.

Een vrouw probeert een leven op te bouwen in de groet stad.

Spiegel spiegel schouder

Kantslag ; Minna saknar en övningslokal

noveller

Kort over Canada

roman

Spejl, skulder, blink

15 grumme og satiriske noveller der med udgangspunkt i en velkendt hverdag skildrer mennesker på kanten og skårede eksistenser

Karate Vurusu

A collection of stories explores the mundane and the dangerous in daily life, including tales of a husband obsessed with female serial killers and a bureaucrat who converts to Buddhism to gain power.

A moving novella unlike any other by the Man Booker International Prize shortlisted author Minna is feeling desperate. Lars has just dumped her by text message. Her friends are constantly flaunting their lovers, children and dogs on Facebook. And her neurotic sister is everywhere she turns. Minna wants a place in Copenhagen to practise her music. Minna wants a child. But what Minna really needs is to get away from it all. So, with only Ingmar Bergman for company, she decides to take a trip to the coast. And there is more on the horizon than she might imagine. Dorthe Nors was born in 1970 and studied literature at the University of Aarhus. She is one of the most original voices in contemporary Danish literature. Her short stories have appeared in numerous international periodicals including The Boston Review and Harpers, and she is the first Danish writer ever to have a story published in the New Yorker. Nors has published four novels so far, including Mirror, Shoulder, Signal - shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize - and a collection of stories Karate Chop, also published by Pushkin Press. Karate Chop won the prestigious P. O. Enquist Literary Prize in 2014. She lives in rural Jutland, Denmark.

Minna Needs Rehearsal Space

Sonja kan ikke skifte gear. Det er faktisk tvivlsomt, om hun overhovedet er sådan en, der kan lære at køre bil.Hun er ældre end de andre på køreskolen, og hendes kørelærer Jytte har så meget på hjerte, at hun ikke har tid til at lære Sonja om gearskifte. Hun ordner det bare for hende. På sjette måned. Sonja bor alene i København, oversætter svenske krimier og går til massage hos Ellen, som tydeligt kan mærke problemerne hobe sig op i hendes bindevæv. Hjemme i Jylland går Sonjas søster rundt og vil ikke tage telefonen, men Sonja er en fighter. Det har hun altid fået at vide, og en dag får hun endelig samlet mod til sig og beder om at skifte kørelærer. Kan man for fanden ikke bare lære at køre bil?

A smart, witty novel of driving lessons and vertigo, short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize Sonja is ready to get on with her life. She’s over forty now, and the Swedish crime novels she translates are losing their fascination. She sees a masseuse, tries to reconnect with her sister, and is finally learning to drive. But under the overbearing gaze of her driving instructor, Sonja is unable to shift gears for herself. And her vertigo, which she has always carefully hidden, has begun to manifest at the worst possible moments. Sonja hoped her move to Copenhagen years ago would have left rural Jutland in the rearview mirror. Yet she keeps remembering the dramatic landscapes of her childhood—the endless sky, the whooper swans, the rye fields—and longs to go back. But how can she return to a place that she no longer recognizes? And how can she escape the alienating streets of Copenhagen? In Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, Dorthe Nors brings her distinctive blend of style, humor, and insight to a poignant journey of one woman in search of herself when there’s no one to ask for directions.

A Novel

Danmarks internationella författarstjärna Dorthe Nors är tillbaka med en novellsamling om längtan i alla dess former. I Karta över Kanada möter vi män och kvinnor, tillsammans och var för sig, vars tillvaro inte tycks matcha deras förväntningar. De befinner sig i Norge, Los Angeles och Köpenhamn men är alla långt hemifrån. Det är förtätade texter som slår upp dörrar till stora rum. Det är noveller om kärlek, våld, omsorg och ensamhet, och som alltid hos Nors blixtrar humorn till när det är som mörkast.

Karta över Kanada

Sonja, que tiene ya más de cuarenta años, vive en Copenhague. Soñó con ser escritora, pero se gana la vida como traductora de thrillers nórdicos ultraviolentos. La suya es una profesión solitaria, que contribuye a aislarla. Su vida es rutinaria y no se siente muy feliz con ella. Y, para colmo, empieza a padecer vértigos, acaso provocados por un problema en el oído interno, o tal vez anuncio de un proceso depresivo. Y es entonces cuando Sonja trata de reconducir su vida tomando algunas decisiones: aprender a conducir con ayuda de un instructor por el que acabará sintiendo cierta atracción, reconciliarse con su cuerpo a través de unas sesiones de masaje con una masajista profesional e intentar retomar el contacto con su esquiva hermana... Aunque las cosas no siempre salen como una espera. Esta es una de esas novelas en las que en apariencia pasan pocas cosas, pero el lector atento sabrá descubrir los muchos y muy caudalosos ríos subterráneos que fluyen por sus páginas. Con su prosa ágil, irónica y punzante, la autora nos ofrece un retrato potentísimo de un personaje femenino en plena crisis de la mediana edad, con sus flaquezas y esperanzas de dar un nuevo sentido a su vida. El libro es también el retrato perspicaz y tragicómico de las soledades urbanas, plasmadas mediante un cúmulo de pequeños gestos cotidianos, de palabras dichas o calladas, de actitudes humanas que a todos nos resultarán muy familiares.

Espejo, hombro, intermitente

Det var så den vinter er en samlet udgave af Dorthe Nors’ to kortromaner Dage og Minna mangler et øvelokale. To rørende og underfundige portrætter af kvinder i det 21. århundrede. I Dage skriver en kvinde lister. Hun har kærestesorg, og det kræver en vis overvindelse at vove sig ud i livet og et forårsmættet København. Der er ikke andet for end at tage én dag af gangen. I Minna mangler et øvelokale møder vi komponisten Minna, som ikke er en dag over 40. Minna er en kvinde, som mangler mange ting i livet – for eksempel et øvelokale, en eksistensberettigelse, et barn og snart også en mand. Minna beslutter sig for at stikke af fra det hele. Hun vil lære at sortere i sine omgivelser - hun vil have sig et røvhulsfilter.

Dorthe Nors

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