Sigrid Finne

Well, okay then, she says after I have read the final sentences aloud to her. But that’s not the way things were.
What, because you were somebody else back then?
No. I was not somebody else back then. I am somebody else now.

The author was going to write a novel about her mother, Sigrid Finne, based on stories Sigrid tells her daughter. But that’s not the way it turns out. The author travels first to Iceland and then to Sicily to write, but finds it more difficult than she had expected. As a result, the first part of Sigrid Finne evolves into a witty and distinctive account of her visit to Sicily; picking olives with four Sicilians, exploring the nearby villages, and finding various ways of avoiding to write.

The story of her mother’s younger years appears in the second part of the book. Sigrid moved from the Western coast to Oslo, where she experienced love with a capital L, before having to flee to Sweden during WWII.

Click here for French sample translation.

Praise for Sigrid Finne:

” Sigrid Finne is a novel full of surprises … The text is beautifully written and the soreness is portrayed without making it sentimental …”
(Bok og Samfunn)

”A beautiful and loving portrait”
(Dagbladet)

”The result is a dense and complex web … the text is spun back and forth, between mother and daughter, in a book I am increasingly fascinated by.”
(Klassekampen)

”An interesting book … a story with secret depths. Quiet and nice on the surface, but underneath is the weight of a life lived – and survived.”
(NRK)

” Sigrid Finne is an original, funny and tender novel that deserves an army of readers.”
(Bergens Tidende)

”Funny, pensive and melancholic”
(Adresseavisen)

”a magnificent novel, you get carried away and it is easily read – with a uncommonly rich vocabulary”
(Stavanger Aftenblad)

”The book gets a more profound and very strong meaning, and it holds a story that could not have been told in any other way – like with every significant novel.”
(Aftenposten)

First Published: 2007, Forlaget Oktober
Marit Tusvik: Biography and bibliography

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