|
One of the most acclaimed Scandinavian novels of the past decade, Kjartan Flogstad’s Dollar Road addresses the political and social forces that have shaped modern Norway. The novel spans a period of forty years—from the late 1930s to the late 1970s—and shows, through the experiences of a family from a small village, the transition of Norway from a predominantly rural, pastoral society to an industrialized welfare state. Selmer Hoysand embodies that transition. He leaves his family’s small farm and finds work in a factory. Slowly the roots that bind him to his past are severed. The traditional values of his family’s rural existence, the closeness of family life, the ties between man and his natural environment give way to a life ordered by the requirements of an international economy. Selmer’s son Arnold, having known no other life, personifies the subjugation of the individual even more completely. He quietly settles into the life prescribed for him, never challenging the accepted order. On the other hand, Rasmus, Arnold’s cousin and the illegitimate son of Selmer’s sister, forsakes life as a factory worker and seeks adventure on the sea, which takes him to Spain, South America, and finally the United States. While Fløgstad displays an uncompromising drive to understand the changing nature of Norwegian society, Dollar Road is far more than a political novel. It is a celebration of human life in all its variety, told in an exuberant and frequently humorous style. It is a novel of many textures, employing myth, irony, and social satire. Dollar Road, which received Scandinavia’s most prestigious literary award, the Nordic Council Prize, and which is the newest winner of the Pegasus Prize for Literature, has already been translated into Swedish, Danish, Finnish, German, and French. For American readers it provides a compelling look at modern Norwegian life.
Kjartan Fløgstad was born in 1944 in the small industrial town of Sauda, on the western coast of Norway. He has traveled extensively, especially in Latin America. He has written poetry, novels, short stories, and essays. His most recent books are The Seventh Climate, a novel, and Tyrannosaurus Text, a collection of essays. Nadia Christensen has translated a dozen books from Norwegian and Danish, including Baby by Kristen Thorup, the 1979 winner of the Pegasus Prize for Literature. She is the author of two books of nonfiction and a children’s book. She lives in Paris.
|
