Written in an unadorned style, with flashes of pitch-black humor, Kjell Askildsen's devastating stories convey in few words life and thought as they are actually experienced, balanced between despair and hope, memories and expectations. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest Norwegian writers of the twentieth century and among the greatest short-story authors of all time.
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A man and a woman in an isolated house, surrounded by nothing, or nearly nothing; besieged by urban desert or actual wilderness, by alcohol, cigarettes, and ghosts; by mothers, fathers, and lovers who have disappeared.
Written in an unadorned style, with flashes of pitch-black humor, Kjell Askildsen's devastating stories convey in few words life and thought as they are actually experienced, balanced between despair and hope, memories and expectations. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest Norwegian writers of the twentieth century and among the greatest short-story authors of all time.
"Ultimately, Askildsen’s stories are about the horror of the mundane, the emptiness of everyday life, and the paradox of both wanting and fearing change (...) these tales are unconcerned with plot, but rather focus on the subtleties and impossibilities of human interaction. They provide us with windows through which we, like the characters, may watch each other, may be held up for scrutiny."–The Literateur
"Kjell Askildsen's dry, absurd humor is not unlike that of Beckett...His short stories are packed with irony, and the dialogue is sharp and expressive" - Times Literary Supplement
"Selected Stories is a meditation on individual freedom, a book fraught with the day-to-day pressures of human life. The nine brief stories collected within can all be described in terms of absences. The absence, for example, of experimental or ornate, “flowery,” prose. The absence of unnecessary characters. The absence of exotic or alien locales, or of complicated plot arcs (...) One senses that Askildsen is delicately, deliberately seeking answers to a particular set of nagging questions, and is never quite satisfied with what he uncovers" - Adam Segal, Numero Cinq Magazine