Selma's Spring
Osmundsen, Mari: Selmas vårSelma Aa lived on the same street for eighteen years. When Hanne disappeared, Selma took her place, married Jostein and became a mother for Hanne’s two children. Selma feels like she has always lived in the shadow of Hanne, who is beautiful and colourful. Now, Selma lives alone in a small house with a white picket fence around the garden, so that her dog Lydia can have a place where she can run around freely. She grows vegetables, has an orchard, and her garden of herbs is beginning to take shape. Jørgen, who recently divorced his wife, convinces her to take Lydia to a dog obedience class. Selma is starting to find her place in her own life. But sometimes Selma Aa wakes up crying over lost opportunities.
“It is as if some of her femininity weathers. It’s probably a defeat, but deep inside she doesn’t feel like she has lost anything, she is still herself. The one sitting here staring out of the window of the bus. The one sitting here watching Selma Aa. That’s me. A dry, almost insensible freedom.”
But she is still not free from Hanne. What does Hanne want from her?
Praise for SELMA'S SPRING:
“Mari Osmundsens succeeds in creating resilient literature on the theme of care that remains invisible, work without status. Well written, well conceived and resiliently composed about one woman’s bleak fate.”
(Dagbladet)
First published: 2009, Forlaget Oktober
Mari Osmundsen: Biography and bibliography
