The New York Times bestseller.
This book is full of wonders...Loose teeth, chewing gum, it all becomes
noble, almost holy, under Knausgaard's patient, admiring gaze. The world
feels repainted."
--The New York Times
From the author of the monumental My Struggle series, Karl Ove
Knausgaard, one of the masters of contemporary literature and a genius
of observation and introspection, comes the first in a new
autobiographical quartet based on the four seasons.
28 August. Now, as I write this, you know nothing about anything, about
what awaits you, the kind of world you will be born into. And I know
nothing about you...
I want to show you our world as it is now: the door, the floor, the
water tap and the sink, the garden chair close to the wall beneath the
kitchen window, the sun, the water, the trees. You will come to see it
in your own way, you will experience things for yourself and live a life
of your own, so of course it is primarily for my own sake that I am
doing this: showing you the world, little one, makes my life worth
living.
Autumn begins with a letter Karl Ove Knausgaard writes to his unborn
daughter, showing her what to expect of the world. He writes one short
piece per day, describing the material and natural world with the
precision and mesmerising intensity that have become his trademark. He
describes with acute sensitivity daily life with his wife and children
in rural Sweden, drawing upon memories of his own childhood to give an
inimitably tender perspective on the precious and unique bond between
parent and child. The sun, wasps, jellyfish, eyes, lice--the stuff of
everyday life is the fodder for his art. Nothing is too small or too
vast to escape his attention. This beautifully illustrated book is a
personal encyclopaedia on everything from chewing gum to the stars.
Through close observation of the objects and phenomena around him,
Knausgaard shows us how vast, unknowable and wondrous the world is.
