AshehougAgency

The Bearer of Shame

Ada does not like God, and nothing suggests that God likes Ada. When she discovers she cannot take part in God's great grace and the sacrifice of Christ, she chooses to sacrifice herself.

Ada becomes a prostitute –a she decides to use her own and other people’s bodies to get rid of everything clean – everything spiritual. But instead of dirt and shame she finds lonely people with a longing for intimacy. It looks like her project is going to fail – until one day one of her clients introduces her to Even, a man without any longings or any wish for closeness and intimacy.

The Bearer of Shame is linked up to Øystein Stene’s previous novel The Master of Waiting, where the ironic and distant Even was the main character. This time it is the angry and lost Ada who speaks her mind.

The Bearer of Shame was on the newspaper Vårt Land's list of the best three books of 2006.

First Published: 2006, Aschehoug
Øystein Stene: Bibliography and biography