AshehougAgency

To Kill a Dragon

One day Else Hammer gets a call from the police with the message that her only son is dead. We follow her through the days immediately after she receives the message; she lies down on a bench in the Royal Park while it's snowing, and is subsequently sent to a psychiatric clinic. The story of Else forms a portrait of a lonely person who tries to get a grip on her own life. Marita Fossum has written a haunting novel not so much about helplessness as about being able to find hope in a hopeless situation.

Praise for To Kill a Dragon:

"Marita Fossum manages in a delicate way to portray a tragic story ... the main character's great pain and deeply disturbing grief ... always avoiding putting them directly into words"
(NRK)

"To write a book like this, which in a convincing way has death as its base of existence, is a literary act of balance ... To Kill a Dragon is a deeply human and down to earth novel ... Fossum's language, at the same time characterized by deep cynicism and limitless love, deals with its subject in an unusually responsible way"
(Dagsavisen)

"There are passages in this novel that are so intense, painful and gripping that it hurts to read them"
(Dag og tid)

"Marita Fossum has written a gentle, but extremely gripping novel on what must be the worst thing one could experience; to lose a child"
(Vinduet)

First published: 2004, Forlaget Oktober
Marita Fossum: Biography and bibliography

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