AshehougAgency

Father's House

Twenty-nine days to find one person among twenty-five million Kenyans, if this person is in Kenya at all, that is.

“I simply have to decide that he is,” Mina tells herself. “I have to focus on a story about a person who has gone missing in a strange country. Without that story, I’m helpless.”

Mina looks different from the other children in Solør, a rural area in the east of Norway. Furthermore, she has a mother who is unlike the other mothers. Mina’s mother has an intellectual life in the capital while Mina lives with her grandparents. The grandparents’ marriage is marked by the class society they are part of, and their marriage leaves its mark on that society, too.

Mina has not heard anyone talk of a father, apart from the vague impressions she picks up around her of someone dark, alien and threatening, an African her mother met in Oslo who then disappeared.

How can an absent African have any significance for so many people’s lives in a little community in Solør? Why is it impossible for Mina to grow up without making the trip to Africa to find her African father? And how close can she possibly get to this stranger?

Set partly in a small rural community in Norway, partly in the Kenyan countryside, this is the story of a young girl’s quest for her own identity, a colourful and peculiar novel with a theme out of the ordinary.

Praise for Father's House:

”Bull’s-eye. Had debutant Adelheid Seyfarth written in English, Father’s House would have been one of this year’s international literary sensations. Rarely does such an ambitious Norwegian novel come tumbling down onto the bookstore’s shelves. Father’s House is such a refined and multi-faceted novel that the reader. Father’s House is also an extremely complex and intricate novel, carried by a wholly unique voice"
(Dagens Næringsliv)

“Original and thought-provoking…important, topical and beautiful” (NRK P2)

“An exceptionally powerful and mature first novel” (VG)

“As an author Adelheid Seyfarth first and foremost demonstrates her potency through her mastery of a wide linguistic spectre. As a first novel, it surpasses most others; the novel has an epic breadth and a linguistic strength unlike anything you would expect from a newcomer. Above all, Father’s House is a novel that paves the way for surprises…on the micro-level, the narrator frolics with exciting, unanticipated devices. Father’s House is one of those novels that challenge the reader in practically every sentence, that never settle down, and that have the strength to never let go of the reader"
(Hamar Arbeiderblad)

”A small piece of Norwegian history… provides an unvarnished version of a Norwegian woman’s emotional chaos in the African rural areas… dares to pose an incredibly sensitive question: Does the emancipated, Western woman (often a “ridiculously well-read and deeply unhappy old-school feminist”) have a better life than for instance the extremely young fifth wife of an old African – or Afghan – patriarch?... Father’s House becomes an existential thriller, where Mina is thrown back an forth between hope and despair, vitality and angst”
(Aftenposten)

“An exceptional reading experience… Seyfarth’s language is extremely rich in nuances…she writes with an authority that for a debutant is very rare”
(Nationen)

“Above all, this is a good, exciting and important story that reflects many essential individual and social aspects. Seyfarth is definitely an author it will be interesting to follow”
(Adresseavisa)

”A rare début…an uncommonly strong voice…an extremely good story with many twists…Fortunately, Seyfarth does not yield to the temptation to portray the Kenyan elements with a vulgar-sociologic distance, but keeps the focus on the main character. Mina is, when all is said and done, an interesting and rare novelistic character, not in a tabloid way because she represents an exotic and “colourful” person in a white Norway, but because she, in spite of everything, dares to explore the blurry boundaries within her own identity and what it is that drives her”
(Nordlys)

"The first novel “Father’s House” has range, depth, pain and a will to live … Adelheid Seyfarth writes a novel about growing up with many layers and a suggestive joy for words… one of this year’s great books in Norwegian… Reminiscent of Zadie Smith. The humour is conspicuous and the observations are head-on”
(Vårt Land)

Klick here for sample translation in English

First published: 2005, Aschehoug Fiction

Adelheid Seyfarth: Biography and bibliography

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