A dix-huit ans, Karl Ove Knausgaard part vivre dans un village de pêcheurs au nord du cercle arctique. Il y enseigne la littérature mais rêve de devenir écrivain. Peu à peu s'installe la nuit polaire, jetant un voile noir sur la vie du jeune homme. L'inspiration vient à manquer, il se saoule jusqu'à l'oubli, tente de perdre sa virginité et tombe amoureux d'une de ses élèves. Ce quatrième opus capture le mélange enivrant d'euphorie et de confusion qui marque la fin de l'adolescence.
A quarante ans, Karl Ove Knausgaard est sur le point de devenir un auteur reconnu a travers le monde entier. Il partage son quotidien entre l'écriture de ce qui sera son grand oeuvre et l'éducation de ses trois enfants en bas âge. Sa vie a Malmö est réglée comme du papier a musique. Jusqu'a ce que son oncle s'oppose a la publication de cette autobiographie. L'interdit remet en cause la seule certitude de Knausgaard : celle de son destin d'écrivain. Pour s'accomplir en tant qu'homme et pere, il doit raconter son histoire, sans rien taire.
Première partie d'un des plus étonnants projets littéraires contemporains, la mort d'un père a connu un succès fulgurant dans les pays scandinaves - plus de 500 000 exemplaires vendus dans son seul pays d'origine, la Norvège. Traduite en 15 langues, récompensée de nombreux et prestigieux prix littéraires, cette tentative d'embrasser et de transcender par l'écriture la vie tout entière a d'ores et déjà permis à Knausgaard de se hisser parmi les grands classiques contemporains. Le petit Karl Ove est un enfant trop sensible, grandi à l'ombre d'un frère solaire, d'une mère souvent absente et d'un père aux colères et à la dureté imprévisibles. Devenu lui-même père, il revient sur ses années de jeunesse. Tissé de mille et une petites anecdotes qui forment autant d'épiphanies, ce temps de l'enfance est marqué par la figure paternelle, ombre portée qui plane sur l'ensemble de l'ouvrage. Jusqu'à sa mort dans la déchéance et l'alcoolisme, et sans doute bien après, la vie de Karl Ove reste hantée par ce père souvent cruel envers son cadet qu'il trouve trop délicat. Les scènes de l'enfance et de l'adolescence, retranscrites avec une justesse poignante, évoquent les premiers émois, la passion du rock, les inhibitions. Karl Ove a la vie dure : il ne prononce pas bien les "r ", sent très jeune sa différence, lui qui, comme nombre d'enfants, n'aspire qu'à la plus plate normalité. Et bientôt survient l'impossible : son frère aîné puis sa mère quittent le foyer familial, laissant Karl Ove seul face à ce père menaçant. Tout est à la fois extrêmement intime et totalement universel dans cette épopée du quotidien qui fait notoirement écho à l'entreprise proustienne dans sa quête d'exhaustivité. L'écriture, fougueuse, pleine d'une douleur et d'une intensité peu communes, donne toute sa force à cette autobiographie qui transcende et renouvelle largement les codes du genre. Par-delà ce paysage sensible livré sans fard, avec une sincérité qui confère à l'impudeur, l'oeuvre de Knausgaard est une quête artistique et intellectuelle : celle de la possibilité pour la littérature de dire la vie. L'écho unanime qu'a rencontré ce livre auprès de la critique souligne, s'il en était besoin, le caractère visionnaire et indispensable de ce texte hors norme.
The International bestseller As the youngest student to be admitted to Bergen's prestigious Writing Academy, Karl Ove arrives full of excitement and writerly aspirations. Soon though, he is stripped of his youthful illusions. His writing is revealed to be puerile and clich�d, and his social efforts are a dismal failure. He drowns his shame in drink and rock music. Then, little by little, things begin to change. He falls in love, gives up writing and the beginnings of an adult life take shape. That is, until his self-destructive binges and the irresistible lure of the writer's struggle pull him back. In this latest instalment of the My Struggle cycle, Knausgaard writes with unflinching honesty to deliver the full drama of everyday life.
Set against a backdrop of cosmic mystery, the narrative explores the profound impact of a newly appeared star on humanity. Characters navigate a world filled with shapeshifting visitors, unsolved murders, and the haunting allure of black metal music, all while grappling with the implications of their dreams. The story delves into themes of life, death, and the human experience, offering readers an immersive journey through an expansive universe crafted by Karl Ove, where the boundaries of reality and imagination blur.
"Spring is a deeply moving, lyrical, and inspiring memoir about family, our everyday lives, our joys and struggles, set over the course of a single day. 'Today is Wednesday the thirteenth of April 2016, it is twelve minutes to eleven, and I have just finished writing this book for you. What happened that summer nearly three years ago, and its repercussions, are long since over. Sometimes it hurts to live, but there is always something to live for.' In Spring, third volume of the Seasons quartet, we follow Karl Ove and his three-month-old daughter, Anna, over the course of one day in April, from sunrise to sunset: a day filled with routine, the beginnings of life and its light, but also its deep struggles and its darkness. In Spring, one of the world's most beguiling literary artists celebrates the greatness of the everyday--the beautiful and the painful--and the big things that hide behind the smallest events in all our lives. Whereas the first two books in Knausgaard's sublime Seasons series are comprised of short texts--sightings of things and places, associations and reflections related to nature and the material world--Spring is a narrative memoir that reads like a short novel. Emotionally captivating, it is the most accessible of all his books for new Karl Ove readers keen to enter into his writing, while also deeply moving for his devoted readers. This beautiful edition is illustrated by the acclaimed Swedish artist Anna Bjerger."--
The fourth part of a sensational literary cycle that has been hailed as "perhaps the most important literary enterprise of our times." --Rachel Cusk, Guardian 18 years old and fresh out of high school, Karl Ove Knausgaard moves to a tiny fisherman's village far north of the polar circle to work as a school teacher. He has no interest in the job itself -- or in any other job for that matter. His intention is to save up enough money to travel while finding the space and time to start his writing career. Initially everything looks fine: He writes his first few short stories, finds himself accepted by the hospitable locals and receives flattering attention from several beautiful local girls. But then, as the darkness of the long polar nights start to cover the beautiful landscape, Karl Ove's life also takes a darker turn. The stories he writes tend to repeat themselves, his drinking escalates and causes some disturbing blackouts, his repeated attempts at losing his virginity end in humiliation and shame, and to his own distress he also develops romantic feelings towards one of his 13-year-old students. Along the way, there are flashbacks to his high school years and the roots of his current problems. And then there is the shadow of his father, whose sharply increasing alcohol consumption serves as an ominous backdrop to Karl Ove's own lifestyle.
An irresistible story of childhood adventure from the international phenomenon, Karl Ove Knausgaard. * Karl Ove Knausgaard's dazzling new novel, The Morning Star, is available to pre-order now * Childhood is exhilarating and terrifying. For the young Karl Ove, new houses, classes and friends are met with manic excitement and creeping dread. Adults occupy godlike positions of power, benevolent in the case of his doting mother, tyrannical in the case of his cruel father. In the now infamously direct style of the My Struggle cycle, Knausgaard describes a time in which victories and defeats are felt keenly and every attempt at self-definition is frustrated. This is a book about family, memory and how we never become quite what we set out to be. 'Knausgaard finds the sublime in the everyday... Boyhood Island reverberates with the joys and anxieties of early youth, and Knausgaard brilliantly recreates their exaggerated feel' Times Literary Supplement
An accessible and personal "confession" of the creative process of the award-winning Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard