A penetrating study of passion, suffering, and loss from one of
Norway's most tenacious writers: National Book Award Finalist and PEN
translation prize winner Hanne Ørstavik
Celebrated throughout the world for her candor and sensitivity to the
rhythms of language, Hanne Ørstavik is a leading light on the
international stage. Ørstavik writes with "a compulsion for truth that
feels like [her] very life force itself." Laced with a tingling
frankness, Ørstavik's prose adheres so closely to the inner workings of
its narrator's mind as to nearly undo itself. In Martin Aitken's
translation, Ørstavik's piercing story sings.
Ti Amo brings a new, deeply personal approach, as the novel is based
in Ørstavik's own experience of losing her Italian husband to cancer. By
facing loss directly, she includes readers in an experience that many
face in isolation. Written and set in the early months of 2020, its
themes of loss and suffering are particularly well suited for a time of
international mourning.
What can be found within a gaze? What lies inside a painting or behind a
handful of repeated words? These are the questions that haunt our
unnamed narrator as she tends to her husband, stricken with cancer, in
the final months of his life.
She examines the elements of their life together: their Vietnamese
rose-colored folding table where they eat their meals, each of the New
Year's Eves they've shared, their friendships, and their most intimate
exchanges.
With everything in flux, she searches for the facets that will remain.
