Karl Ove Knausgård / Interview

 

Karl Ove Knausgård 

Interview

24 July 2012

There is a side to every man, so deeply personal, that it can only be revealed to strangers. When, at the age of thirty-nine, Karl Ove Knausgård decided to reveal his, the result was a six-tome autobiographical novel, totaling over 3,500 pages, as well as a very public lawsuit brought on by his family, and a subsequent controversy that fed the media in his native Norway for months. That was three years ago, and Knausgård is still uncomfortable with the attention Min Kamp (in English My Struggle, Archipelago, 2012), has received. Then again, naming a book after Hitler’s autobiography would seem to welcome controversy. Tall and slim, standing in front of a small audience in the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House in a black leather jacket and tight jeans, Knausgård gave the newly published English translation of his first volume a light squeeze. This, he said, trying to control the thick strands of greying hair that persistently got in his eyes, was as private as a novel could get. In it he revealed his innermost secrets, as well as intimate, merciless details from the lives of family and friends. Everything in it is true, but he refuses to call it a memoir; it is a long confession told with novelistic technique. He felt shame as he wrote it, not because of the nature of content, but because he thought it was devoid of literary value: who would be interested in his life? Eventually he realized that the work was relevant precisely because it was so personal; it created that unique fellowship between the writer and the reader, which is the very core of literature. ‘It is an intimate art form. One author, one reader. That’s it.’

A Strange Bird’s Cry by Karl Ove Knausgård

 

A Strange Bird’s Cry

by Karl Ove Knausgård

The Norwegian author Tarjei Vesaas was born in 1897, the same year as William Faulkner, and two years before Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov and Ernest Hemingway. Vesaas is not usually mentioned in the same breath as the others in this generation, obviously because his books are hardly read outside Scandinavia and, I suppose, because it is easy to think that his books are hardly read outside Scandinavia for a reason, and that reason can only be that they are not as good. But they are.

Jon Fosse / Interview

 

Jon Fosse

Interview
Jon Fosse

1 April 2020

Jon Fosse’s The Other Name describes two consecutive days in the life of its narrator Asle, a painter and widower who lives alone in a remote house in Dylgja. Another identical Asle, also a painter, lives in the nearby town of Bjørgvin. Fosse’s book moves quietly between these two men, two versions of the same person, on different paths. 

Dreamed in Stone by Jon Fosse

Dreamed in Stone 

By Jon Fosse

Translated by Damion Searles

I

No one saw the avalanche because it all fell apart so slowly. Not day by day, not even hour by hour, or minute by minute, but it fell apart. It was falling apart the whole time, and it was an avalanche. It had to be an avalanche, because what else could it be?

Vaim Hotel by Jon Fosse

 

The novel Vaim is the first book to be published by Jon Fosse after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023. It will be launched in connection with the opening of DIFF 2025.

VAIM HOTEL

by Jon Fosse

Translated by Damion Searles

I was standing outside The Vaim General Store with this fishing set in my hand, and I thought why in the world had I bought myself a fishing rod, no, it had never once crossed my mind to buy fishing gear, because what was I supposed to do with it, it’s true I had liked fishing when I was a boy, but, yes, that was quite a long time ago, still for all I knew it might be fun to stand there on The Quay and cast out the line and reel it in again, maybe, I thought and either way The Shopkeeper was a very good salesman, that was for sure, once you walk through the door of his shop there’s no getting away from him, yes, I thought, and what now, well I’d been thinking I would go to the restaurant, to get dinner, yes because it had been several days since I’d had good hot food, so it would taste good, I thought, and besides I was probably pretty curious to see what it was like in that restaurant, but was I actually allowed to go in there carrying this fishing gear, because I didn’t want to go back up to my room with it, because who knows, maybe I’d run into The Hotel Owner again, maybe with all Brita’s nosiness she’s gone up to my room again to see what I have in my suitcases, yes, she probably has, definitely, since I had nothing to hide she could look at every last thing in there if it made her happy, as far as I was concerned, but it was a bit ridiculous, that Brita woman wasn’t entirely on the level, I thought and I noticed that I had started walking down towards The Quay, not that I wanted to go fishing now, but sooner or later I’d have to try my hand at casting a line or two, I thought, but for now I just wanted go down to The Quay to look around before I went into the restaurant, Vaim Restaurant yes, I thought and I stopped and stood there and looked at the boat tied up there on The Quay, and it was a beautiful boat, big for the kind of boat it was, and the roof extended to almost cover the whole boat, and that was probably just as well, since it rained so much in this part of the country, and the boat was nicely lacquered, yes, the varnish was so shiny that it glittered, yes that boat was a sight to see, and the name it had, Eline, that was a beautiful name, I felt, but now it really was probably time to get some food in me, yes, I thought and then I cut across the parking lot towards the door with Vaim Restaurant painted on it and I opened the door and I could see it was bright and cozy in the restaurant, and a guy was sitting at a table in the far corner of the restaurant, about my age, he had a beer bottle and a glass on the table in front of him and he sat there staring into space, and he didn’t notice that someone had come into the restaurant, he just sat there staring into space like before, there weren’t that many tables in the restaurant, but they were nice old wooden tables, and there were wooden chairs like the one I had in my room around the tables, four wooden chairs for each table, and then on the left there was a counter with a cash register and the menu was written on a kind of blackboard on the wall behind the counter, and there were three dishes to choose from, meatballs, fishcakes, and stew, and below that it said that dessert was fruit cocktail with ice cream and that was it, and then there on the counter there was indeed a sheep bell, just like Brita had said and I went and leaned the fishing set against the wall behind the nearest table, the one closest to the door, and so the farthest away from the man sitting drinking a beer and staring straight ahead, and then I went over to the counter and picked up the sheep bell and shook it, and damn it made a loud sound, so I quickly put it back down on the counter, and the man sitting there with his glass of beer was still only staring straight ahead, yes yes, I thought and I guessed I had to just stand there at the counter and wait, I thought and all of this taken together really was a bit strange, I thought, The Vaim Hotel and The Vaim Restaurant and The Vaim General Store, yes, everything was kind of odd, and I wasn’t so sure whether I liked it or not, no, there was almost something unreal about it all, I thought, and my car, I saw it when I left the store, didn’t I, no, maybe not and I think I should go look out the door to see if it’s there, and I go to the door and I open it, go outside, and yes, well, the car is right where I parked it, so as I can see everything’s fine, I think and I go over to the car and I think that I should check to make sure the doors are locked and they are, every door, and so I should probably go back to the restaurant then, because somebody who can serve me probably has to come soon, I think and I go back into the restaurant and as soon as I’m through the door I see Brita standing there holding up the fishing set and she looks at me

Vaim Hotel is the second of three books

 

Original title: Vaim Hotell
Publisher: Samlaget, 2026
Genre: Novel

VAIM HOTEL
by Jon Fosse

Hotel is the second of three books about the fictional small town of Vaim, each with different characters.

It is a strange story about The Guest and a hotel owner named Brita. The Guest checks into the empty Vaim Hotel, where the commanding and powerful owner Brita holds sway in partnership with The Businessman. The Guest is tricked and lied to and goes from being a guest to working for Brita.

To be published in 2026.

Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi / The Ghost of the Mountains

 

The Ghost of the Mountains

by Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi

Silent, solitary and beautiful: snow leopards inhabit the cliffs and rugged mountains of central Asia at heights of over 3,000 metres. Thickly furred, with silver-grey pelts, they are so well camouflaged that they vanish into the rocky landscape.

The biologist and scientist Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi – Kullu for short – has spent twenty years studying these elusive creatures in the mountainous wild, exploring their daily challenges, habitats and prey. Living for months at a time in some of the most difficult to reach places on earth, including Himalayan villages cut off from the world by the winter snow and the Gobi Desert, Kullu has developed new research that shines fresh light on these charismatic and vulnerable animals, and shows how entangled their survival is with the local people.

Combining expert authority, groundbreaking science, a journey of discovery and storytelling of the highest order, The Ghost of the Mountains is a unique opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the snow leopard.

GRANTA

Interview whit Han Kang

Han Kang

INTERVIEW WITH HAN KANG

By sahah shin

TranslateD by debora smith

March 2016

Han Kang is a disquieting storyteller who leads the reader into the very heart of human experience, where the singular crosses the universal. Author of ten books of fiction and poetry in her native Korean, Han’s subversive work has been brought onto the Anglophone stage through close partnership with her award-winning translator Deborah Smith. Smith’s elegant renditions of the novels HUMAN ACTS (2016) and THE VEGETARIAN (2015) form part of a recent blossoming of international interest in Korean literature; Dalkey Archive’s Library of Korean Literature launched in 2013 and consists of 25 translations so far. Originally published as three novellas in South Korea nearly a decade ago, Han has said that THE VEGETARIAN was initially received as ‘very extreme and bizarre’ in Korea. It has since become a cult bestseller, with translation rights sold in twenty countries and its central novella ‘Mongolian Mark’ awarded the prestigious Yi Sang Literary Prize in 2005. HUMAN ACTS, her latest novel, was awarded the Korean Manhae Literary Prize last year, adding to her numerous other accolades.

Han Kang / Moon-shaped rice cake

Han Kang, Barcelona, 2026.GIANLUCA BATTISTA

Moon-shaped rice cake

by Hang Kang

 

Last spring, someone asked me whether I’d had ‘a particular experience, when you were young, which brought you close to sadness?’ during a radio interview.

White / State of Mid by Hang Kang

Han Kang, Barcelona, 2026. GIANLUCA BATTISTA

White | State of Mind

By Han Kang

Translated by Debora Smith

Newborn gown

 

My mother’s first child died, I was told, less than two hours into life.

 

A solitary drummer in a Jamaican interior, where rhythm carries memory, resistance, and the unfinished struggle against Babylon

Beyond Bob Marley: the sound of resistance

How reggae became a global language of decolonization, memory, and revolt

Hakim Ikhlef
29 Junr 2026

The world of reggae: beyond Bob Marley Bob Marley’s world—the one that matters—was never about comfort. It was a world of resistance, return, and the radical imagination—where chant is constitution, the drum is memory, and dance is the first act of freed movement. Going beyond Bob Marley points to restoring the genuine and authentic meaning of reggae in its original context. It enables us to place it back in its historical dimension of sonic and poetic insurgency, exploring the global context of decolonization and Third Worldism in revolutionary times—even if the 60s and 70s attempts failed irremediably.

REVIEW
BOOK OF THE DAY

Long Wave By Daisy Johnson review – a sublime novel of motherhood and loss

Covering three generations, this tangled story of secrets, childhood, abandonment and care might be her best work yet

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

Thursday 2 July 2026

In 2018 Daisy Johnson was the youngest writer ever to be shortlisted for the Booker prize, for her debut novel Everything Under, a gender-fluid reimagining of the Oedipus myth involving canal boat communities and their complex family dynamics, plus a strange monster lurking in the depths. Before that, her short‑story collection Fen, with its blend of the uncanny and the workaday, was critically acclaimed. She has Written Sisters, a psychological horror that uses supernatural elements to explore sibling bonds and grief, and The Hotel,  series of seriously chilling interlinked ghost stories. Now comes Long Wave, which, while it shares some of these hallmarks, is in many ways finer and more subtle: perhaps her strongest work yet.

Family Life at Clinton Street by Lydia Davis

 

Family Life at Clinton Street

BYLYDIA DAVIS

The wooden Chinese junk, with its carved crew, used to sit on a small table in Grandfather’s bedroom, before his death. It had been a gift from his friend Burlingame when they were both young. Burlingame had brought it back from a trip with his father to the Far East.

Queenie Is Working On It by Candice Carty-Williams review – a smart sequel to a breakout bestseller

 

Candice Carty-Williams; the cover of 'Queenie Is Working on It'.Credit : 

Emil Huseynzade; Gallery/Scout Press

Book of the day

Review

Queenie Is Working On It by Candice Carty-Williams review – a smart sequel to a breakout bestseller

Queenie’s ticking biological clock drives her chaotic misadventures in this sage and funny follow-up

Shahidha Bari

Tuesday 30 June 2026

Agynaecological examination is a good analogy for the kind of painful self-inspection at which Queenie Jenkins excels. The heroine of Candice Carty-Williams’s 2019 debut Queenie memorable begins that novel with a medical appointment for a mystery ailment that turns out to be a miscarriage. The sequel, Queenie Is Working on It, picks up the story eight years on, with the now 33-year-old Queenie back on the gurney, this time for a fertility checkup. “I didn’t realise they did condoms for anything other than … penises,” Queenie observes lamely as the unsmiling doctor sheaths a probe. Life has changed, but in many ways, Queenie has not.

Candice Carty-Williams / ‘People feel very attached to Queenie’

 

Candice Carty-Williams

INTERVIEW

Candice Carty-Williams: ‘People feel very attached to Queenie’

The breakout success of her debut created a publishing scramble for Black writers, but has that appetite for diversity endured? Carty-Williams talks about wanting to quit the TV adaptation, why now is the perfect time for her sequel

Emma Loffhagen

Saturday 20 June 2026

One of the questions Candice Carty-Williams has spent the past few years batting away is whether she is Queenie. It is perhaps inevitable: her best­selling debut novel followed Queenie Jenkins, a twenty­something south London journalist navigating heartbreak, racism, terrible men and an escalating sense that her life was slipping beyond her control. Like Carty-Williams, Queenie is south London-born, Black and works in media.

 

Candice Carty-WilliamsPAUL_GROVER

 This article is more than 7 years old

Interview

Candice Carty-Williams: ‘You get accustomed to men saying, "You’re pretty for a black girl"’

This article is more than 7 years old

The debut novelist struggled to find books about women like her, so she wrote one. She talks about interracial dating, white middle-class publishing and her love for social media

Fiona Sturges
Saturdady 30 March 2019

A

fortnight ago the writer Candice Carty-Williams was talking to a man on a dating app. They began to discuss meeting up, then out of the blue, he announced: “I like really strong ebony women and I want them to dominate me.”“This has happened to me, like, 100 times,” Carty-Williams says with surprising cheerfulness. “He was a white man. It’s only now that I’m old and wise enough to understand my value that I didn’t take that forward. The younger me – the girl growing up believing that black girls are not desirable except for sex – would have entertained that for a long time.”

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams review – a smart and breezy debut

This article is more than 7 years old

A Londoner’s low self-esteem leads to a series of ill-advised flings in an amusing first novel

Anthony Cummins
Tuesday 16 April 2019

You can’t help but suspect that literary fiction short-changes readers when it comes to portraying black Britons. A novel such as Diana Evans’s Ordinary People, about middle-class midlife marital crises, felt radical mainly because the alternatives tend to be gritty or nothing: a choice between, say, Guy Gunaratne’s In Our Mad and Furious City, about estate kids caught up in riots, or John Lanchester’s south London panorama Capital, without a black British character in sight.