International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award 2002

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The 2003 Award

The Necessary Rituals of Maren Gripe

by Øystein Lønn

Translated from Norwegian by Barbara Haveland

Nominated by:

Copenhagen Central Library, Copenhagen, Denmark
Bergen Public Library, Bergen, Norway
Deichmanske Bibliothek, Oslo, Norway
Solvberget KF - Stavanger Bibliotek og Kulturhus, Stavanger, Norway

The Necessary Rituals of Maren Gripe by Oystein Lonn

Publisher of Nominated Edition: Flamingo ISBN 0007113331

the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Maren abstains from salt, meat and sex on Saturdays. On the other days of the week, she is magnetically, magically desirable to every man in her remote North Sea fishing village, and to all visiting seamen, but has remained completely faithful to her husband Jacob. When she crawls into their bed with intent late one spring Saturday night, Jacob is paralysed with shock, not least because, somehow, she smells of autumn…
Within hours Maren's life is crumbling, as is her marriage and the life of her community. She's to be found in a pub full of lusty sailors, baring her breasts before the astonished regulars and one entirely irregular visitor, a Dutch seaman who, uniquely, remains impervious to her charms. Her unrequited passion for him reaches fever pitch and sparks a series of arguments, thefts, fires and fistfights - and the entire tranquil, ordered village seems to go crazy in the wake of her passion. Through a series of overlapping, contradictory reports from the night's participants and observers - as in a criminal case - the reader is brought to the eye of the whirlwind, and into the presence of passion of absolute purity, and absolute fury.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Øystein Lønn was born in Kristiansand, Norway in 1936 and published his first book in 1966. He has since published two collections of stories and eight novels. In 1995 he won the prestigious Nordic Council's Prize for Literature. Many of his stories have been dramatised and filmed.

Find out more about the author on the following websites:

Interview with Oystein Lonn

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