The Third Realm
Published on 18. September 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
512 pages
978-1-5299-3195-2 (ISBN)
Description
'Strikingly humane, unsettling, and wholly unique' Ferdia Lennon
'Ferociously readable. . . I still can't get enough' The Times
If no one ever died, what would happen then?
For several days, a bright new star in the sky above Norway has blazed over the restless lives of those below. Tove, an artist, is consumed by intense creativity as she spirals towards psychosis. Line falls in love with a musician named Valdemar and is lured to a secret black metal gig in a remote forest. Geir, a policeman, is investigating a ritual murder but chances upon something more horrifying even than the bodies in the trees - the last bodies he sees, because, as undertaker Syvert is the first to realise, people have stopped dying since the star appeared.
What is haunting the world - and why?
As profound as it is thrilling, Karl Ove Knausgaard's The Third Realm is a breathtaking novel about ordinary lives on the cusp of irrevocable change.
PRAISE FOR THE THIRD REALM
'A visionary epic' Guardian
'One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I've ever read. . . This book made me afraid of the dark again.' Brandon Taylor, Washington Post
'As accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama series. There is no writer I would rather devour' Spectator
PRAISE FOR KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD:
'Karl Ove Knausgaard is one of my literary heroes' Torrey Peters
'Addictive' Daily Telegraph
'Knausgaard retains the ability to lock you, as if in a tractor beam, into his storytelling' New York Times
'Casts an existential spell. . . captivating' Financial Times
'Ferociously readable. . . I still can't get enough' The Times
If no one ever died, what would happen then?
For several days, a bright new star in the sky above Norway has blazed over the restless lives of those below. Tove, an artist, is consumed by intense creativity as she spirals towards psychosis. Line falls in love with a musician named Valdemar and is lured to a secret black metal gig in a remote forest. Geir, a policeman, is investigating a ritual murder but chances upon something more horrifying even than the bodies in the trees - the last bodies he sees, because, as undertaker Syvert is the first to realise, people have stopped dying since the star appeared.
What is haunting the world - and why?
As profound as it is thrilling, Karl Ove Knausgaard's The Third Realm is a breathtaking novel about ordinary lives on the cusp of irrevocable change.
PRAISE FOR THE THIRD REALM
'A visionary epic' Guardian
'One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I've ever read. . . This book made me afraid of the dark again.' Brandon Taylor, Washington Post
'As accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama series. There is no writer I would rather devour' Spectator
PRAISE FOR KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD:
'Karl Ove Knausgaard is one of my literary heroes' Torrey Peters
'Addictive' Daily Telegraph
'Knausgaard retains the ability to lock you, as if in a tractor beam, into his storytelling' New York Times
'Casts an existential spell. . . captivating' Financial Times
Reviews / Votes
I still can't get enough...The compulsion to keep reading springs from the author's ability to transcribe patterns of thinking. His faith that access to other people's consciousness might make us feel less alone remains a profound - and distinctly literary - conviction * The Times * Unsettling, disturbing and riveting... As we become privy to the characters musings on philosophy, religion, art, neuroscience and love, they grow ever more compelling.... as accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama series. There is no writer I would rather devour * Spectator * Knausgaard is one of the finest writers at work today, and The Third Realm is a deeply strange, polyphonic gothic novel with echoes of Bram Stoker. Blending acute psychological realism with the supernatural, it conjures a fictive world that is at once strikingly humane, unsettling, and wholly unique -- Ferdia Lennon Breathtaking...The book opens and closes with Tove...her mix of despair and insight, humour and visionary brilliance turns out to be what these novels need most... [The Third Realm] has such an electrifyingly capacious sense of what the novel can be * Guardian * One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I've ever read. Novel by novel, Knausgaard is replenishing some feral charge to the world. This book made me afraid of the dark again. -- Brandon Taylor * Washington Post * Intense... The presence of a detective investigating a ritual murder injects surprising pace, while distinctive meditations on mortality, the divine and mental illness prove enthralling * Mail on Sunday * If you love Knausgaard...you'll devour The Third Realm... it's ferociously readable... I still can't get enough * The Times * A visionary epic... an exemplary masterclass in what fiction can offer * Guardian * The Third Realm... is primarily a meditation on the ordinary... compelling... At every turn...we see Knausgaard's relish in depicting the unreliability of people's thoughts * Literary Review * Readers who come to this book first will find an entertaining story about people sorting through spiritual, domestic, and emotional confusion. But those who've read the prior novels will get a deeper sense of just how fascinating, frustrating, and unknowable we can be to each other, and the consequences of that disconnection. * Kirkus (starred review) *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 193 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 40 mm
Weight
354 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-3195-2 (9781529931952)
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
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2024
Vintage Digital
€8.99
Available for download
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 Seasons Quartet and the Morning Star sequence (The Morning Star, The Wolves of Eternity, The Third Realm and The School of Night) is published in thirty-six languages.
Martin Aitken (Translator)
Martin Aitken's translations of Scandinavian fiction are widely published. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the International Booker Prize, the Dublin Literary Award and the US National Book Awards, among other prizes. He received the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019 and, for the first book in the Morning Star cycle, the US National Translation Award in Prose in 2022. He lives in Denmark
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 Seasons Quartet and the Morning Star sequence (The Morning Star, The Wolves of Eternity, The Third Realm and The School of Night) is published in thirty-six languages.
Martin Aitken (Translator)
Martin Aitken's translations of Scandinavian fiction are widely published. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the International Booker Prize, the Dublin Literary Award and the US National Book Awards, among other prizes. He received the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019 and, for the first book in the Morning Star cycle, the US National Translation Award in Prose in 2022. He lives in Denmark