Tarjei Vesaas

Earning its author a third nomination for the Nobel Prize, this tale centers on a crane colony arriving at its breeding ground to play out a delicate drama, ending with the rarely observed ceremony of the ritual dance. All is observed by a transfixed child who has frozen into his background and become a piece of nature himself. With a kind of cinematic impressionism, this novel voyages back to episodes from childhood, adolescence, and maturity as...

Set in the Norwegian countryside over the course of one summer, The Birds tells the story of forty-year-old Mattis, who has mental disabilities and lives in a small house near a lake with his sister Hege, who ekes out a modest living knitting sweaters. From time to time Hege encourages her brother to find work to ease their financial burdens, but Mattis's attempts to work at the surrounding farms always end in failure and disgrace. Mattis is keenly...

"Tarjei Vesaas's final work before his death, this episodic novel drifts between dream-like abstraction and vivid description of seemingly ordinary yet heightened scenes of the Norwegian countryside. The first story finds a young boy and his father clearing a logging road deep in snow, as their surroundings give way to an expression of power and resignation between the two. Commentary on human behavior continues to meet the quiet power of the natural...