AshehougAgency

Islands in My Heart

Islands in My Heart is all about is all about what travelling somewhere does to the traveller, about how the memories of the places you have been to remains and make you who you are, about how certain landscapes continue to resonate in you.

As in the author’s previous travel book, Cretan Days, Islands in my Heart is about travelling as a way of life; the travels make up a secret life. Nilsen tells of the white sand by Kirkeneset in the rain, about a woman in Venice with rollers in her hair, about the constrained swimming style of the chalk white middle aged house owner, about picking up strange dogs, and about feeling joy and comfort by being at the periphery of other people’s lives.

Praise for Islands in My Heart:

“A beautiful book filled with wisdom and love for people, animals, places, countries and – islands”
5/6
(VG)

“Tove Nilsen offers delicate and loving memories from times long gone … solid and beautiful writing craft”
(Dagbladet)

“The caring and affectionately drawn portraits make Tove Nilsen’s travel book a great read … elegantly balancing between the humorous, the comic and the friendly revealing”
(Dagsavisen)

“I wish I had accompanied her to crete and seen Paleochora’s thinnest man lie down backwards in the water with his knees up and the elbows out … With scenes like that, Islands in the Heart make you want to travel … a mild and keen depictor of people and social milieus.”
(Dag og Tid)

“[Nilsen] writes with curiosity, but also with respect … In loose, vivid and easily read prose, Tove Nilsen takes the reader out on a trip and into her mind … Even though the reader doen’t see Skåtøy or Crete as “their” islands, there is a lot that seems familiar in this little, wise book about travelling”
5/6
(Telemarksavisa)

“casual and charming memories”
(Stavanger Aftenblad)

First published: 2011, Forlaget Oktober
Tove Nilsen: Biography and bibliography