Out Stealing Horses: WINNER OF THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE

Description

A moving tale of isolation, the painful loss of innocence and a eulogy for the traditional ways of life gone forever. In 1948, when he is fifteen, Trond spends a summer in the country with his father. The events - the accidental death of a child, his best friend's feelings of guilt and eventual disappearance, his father's decision to leave the family for another woman - will change his life forever. An early morning adventure out stealing horses leaves Trond bruised and puzzled by his friend Jon's sudden breakdown. The tragedy which lies behind this scene becomes the catalyst for the two boys' families gradually to fall apart. As a 67-year-old man, and following the death of his wife, Trond has moved to an isolated part of Norway to live in solitude. But a chance encounter with a character from the fateful summer of 1948 brings the painful memories of that year flooding back, and will leave Trond even more convinced of his decision to end his days alone.

Per Petterson was born in Oslo in 1952 and worked for several years as an unskilled labourer and a bookseller. He made his literary breakthrough in 2003 with the prizewinning novel Out Stealing Horses, which has been published in forty-nine languages and won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

Lyrical, deceptively clever...the way the story folds together like the petals of a rose is one of the novel's pleasurable surprises...an intelligent journey from boyhood into manhood... * Daily Telegraph * Deeply atmospheric...concise beauty of his prose movingly captures the Norwegian landscape and rural way of life...This stunning novel will tell you more about the Norwegian countryside and psyche than the most enthusiastically well-informed guide book' * Daily Telegraph * Petterson catches so effectively the thing that haunts all of us, the knowledge of how fragile life is...He captures the essence of a man's existence with a clean-lined freshness that hits you like a burst of winter air - surprising and breathtaking...touching humour...the narrative is beautifully balanced...Petterson writes with robust unpretentiousness. His story gathers pace like growing up, and stimulates heart and mind like a brisk country walk. * Daily Express * Limpid prose...an impressive novel of rare and exemplary moral courage. * Independent on Sunday * A novel of considerable quality. * Scotsman *