Dag Solstad

In this existential murder mystery, it is Christmas Eve, and fifty-five-year-old professor Pal Andersen is alone, drinking coffee and cognac in his living room. Lost in thought, he looks out of the window and sees a man strangle a woman in the apartment across the street. Failing to report the murder, he becomes paralyzed by indecision. Professor Andersen's Night is an unsettling yet highly entertaining novel, written in Dag Solstad's signature concise, dark, and witty prose. "He's a kind of surrealistic writer of very strange novels," Huraki Murakami wrote, "I think he is serious literature."

Professor Andersen's Night

Agnes Scott Langeland

It is Christmas Eve, and 55-year-old Professor Pål Andersen is alone, drinking coffee and cognac in his living room. Lost in thought, he looks out of the window and sees a man strangle a woman in the apartment across the street. Professor Andersen fails to report the crime. The days pass, and he becomes paralysed by indecision. Desperate for respite, the professor sets off to a local sushi bar, only to find himself face to face with the murderer. Professor Andersen's Night is an unsettling yet highly entertaining novel of apathy, rebellion and morality. In flinty prose, Solstad presents an uncomfortable question: would we, like his cerebral protagonist, do nothing?

Gary Homewood

Professor of literature witnesses a "Rear WIndow" style murder, ruminates and muses as to whether to report it. Existential, repetitive and middle-class cerebral.

Professor Andersen's Night

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