The Morning Star
the new novel from the author of My Struggle
Published on 30. September 2021
Book
Hardback
688 pages
978-1-910701-71-3 (ISBN)
Description
The breathtaking new novel from the internationally bestselling author of My Struggle
'Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive.' New York Times
One long night in August, Arne and Tove are staying with their children in their summer house in southern Norway. Kathrine, a priest, is flying home from a Bible seminar, questioning her marriage. Journalist Jostein is out drinking for the night, while his wife, Turid, a nurse at a psychiatric care unit, is on a nightshift when one of her patients escapes.
Above them all, a huge star suddenly appears blazing in the sky. It brings with it a mysterious sense of foreboding.
Strange things start to happen as nine lives come together under the star. Hundreds of crabs amass on the road as Arne drives at night; Jostein receives a call about a death metal band found brutally murdered in a Satanic ritual; Kathrine conducts a funeral service for a man she met at the airport - but is he actually dead?
The Morning Star is about life in all its mundanity and drama, the strangeness that permeates our world, and the darkness in us all. Karl Ove Knausgaard's astonishing new novel goes to the utmost limits of freedom and chaos, to what happens when forces beyond our comprehension are unleashed, and the realms of the living and the dead collide.
'Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive.' New York Times
One long night in August, Arne and Tove are staying with their children in their summer house in southern Norway. Kathrine, a priest, is flying home from a Bible seminar, questioning her marriage. Journalist Jostein is out drinking for the night, while his wife, Turid, a nurse at a psychiatric care unit, is on a nightshift when one of her patients escapes.
Above them all, a huge star suddenly appears blazing in the sky. It brings with it a mysterious sense of foreboding.
Strange things start to happen as nine lives come together under the star. Hundreds of crabs amass on the road as Arne drives at night; Jostein receives a call about a death metal band found brutally murdered in a Satanic ritual; Kathrine conducts a funeral service for a man she met at the airport - but is he actually dead?
The Morning Star is about life in all its mundanity and drama, the strangeness that permeates our world, and the darkness in us all. Karl Ove Knausgaard's astonishing new novel goes to the utmost limits of freedom and chaos, to what happens when forces beyond our comprehension are unleashed, and the realms of the living and the dead collide.
Reviews / Votes
Knausgaard retains the ability to lock you, as if in a tractor beam, into his storytelling... Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive. -- Dwight Garner * New York Times * Grippingly crafted storytelling... prose that is keenly aware of the value of suspense and surprise... [The Morning Star] has that beguiling, elusively compulsive quality that Knausgaard seems to have made his own. -- Andrew Anthony * Observer * I read The Morning Star compulsively, and stayed awake all night after finishing it... The novel's revelation is not that something terrible is coming for us all but that it is already in our midst. -- Brandon Taylor * New Yorker * Knausgaard's sentences, in Martin Aitken's translation, are both plainly direct and lyrically, emotionally elevated . . . Symphonic. -- Heidi Julavits * New York Times Book Review * A true Scandinavian epic... Knausgaard's brilliant storytelling is as bright as the celestial body from which the book takes its title. -- Roddy Brooks * Independent * Ravishing... This combination of the universal and the intimate enables the novel to approach weighty subjects - death and dying, belief and despair - with both the thrust of a suspense narrative and the depth of a philosophical inquiry. * New Yorker * Fascinating, provocative... [The Morning Star] recalls the best of My Struggle: that swooping interplay between the general and the specific. -- Claire Lowdon * Times Literary Supplement * A masterpiece, heavenly and diabolical in equal measure. -- Emily Watkins * i * A compelling mystery. * Mail on Sunday * The narrators' stories converge and build towards an unexpected, brilliantly handled and devastating conclusion. * Spectator * [Knausgaard] reveals himself to be a surprise master of the uncanny... a thoughtful, highly readable novel, packed with ideas and exciting flourishes. * Los Angeles Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 56 mm
Weight
966 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-910701-71-3 (9781910701713)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Karl Ove Knausgaard (Author)
Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle cycle has been heralded as a masterpiece all over the world. From A Death in the Family to The End, the novels move through childhood into adulthood and, together, form an enthralling portrait of human life. Knausgaard has been awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, the Brage Prize and the Jerusalem Prize. His work, which also includes The Morning Star, Out of the World, A Time for Everything and the Seasons Quartet, is published in thirty-five languages.
Martin Aitken (Translator)
Martin Aitken's translations of Scandinavian literature number some 35 books. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the International DUBLIN Literary Award (2017) and the U.S. National Book Awards (2018), as well as the 2021 International Booker Prize. He received the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019.
Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle cycle has been heralded as a masterpiece all over the world. From A Death in the Family to The End, the novels move through childhood into adulthood and, together, form an enthralling portrait of human life. Knausgaard has been awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, the Brage Prize and the Jerusalem Prize. His work, which also includes The Morning Star, Out of the World, A Time for Everything and the Seasons Quartet, is published in thirty-five languages.
Martin Aitken (Translator)
Martin Aitken's translations of Scandinavian literature number some 35 books. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the International DUBLIN Literary Award (2017) and the U.S. National Book Awards (2018), as well as the 2021 International Booker Prize. He received the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019.