TARJEI VESAAS (1897-1970), author of twenty-five novels, and
several volumes of poetry, short stories, and plays, is widely
regarded as one of Norway's greatest writers of the twentieth
century. His writing touches on a variety of difficult themes such
as mortality, guilt, and angst, while often chronicling the deep
intractable human emotions of his characters. Vesaas won a number
of awards, including the the prestigious Nordic Council's
Literature Prize in 1963 for his novel, The Ice Palace, and The
Venice Prize in 1953 for The Winds. He was considered for the Nobel
Prize three times.
About the translators:
TORBJØRN STØVERUD is the author of Milestones of Norwegian
Literature, Modern Norwegian Literature, and, together with
George Popperwell, Anthology of Norwegian Literature, Volume
1-6. Together with Hal Sutcliff he is the translator of The Story
of Edvard Munch by Ketil Bjornstad and Insect
Summer by Knut Faldbakken.
MICHAEL BARNES is Emeritus Professor of Scandinavian Studies at
University College London. He is the author of The Scandinavian
Runic Inscriptions of Britain, An Introduction to Scandinavian
Phonetics, and The Norn Language of Orkney and Shetland, among
others.
“Tarjei Vesaas has written the best Norwegian novel ever, The
Birds—it is absolutely wonderful, the prose is so simple and so
subtle, and the story is so moving that it would have been counted
amongst the great classics from the last century if it had been
written in one of the major languages.” —Karl Ove Knausgaard,
author of My Struggle, in the New York Times Book Review
“[The Birds] has a freshness that can only be due to its timeless
subject matter . . . From the first page, this novel grips us with
an acutely sensitive rendition of a mentally handicapped man's
inner world.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Mattis, the protagonist of . . . The Birds, surely deserves a
place among the cadre of unforgettable characters in modern
literature . . . Vesaas’s prose, spare and
straightforward, soars with a poignancy of feeling . . .
Mattis’s disability is the pivot upon which the novel unfolds and
also serves to amplify the ways that “normal” people, too, are
“handicapped.” Vesaas allows us see that without Mattis’s
sensitivity, perceptivity, and honesty, we, too, are impaired,
limited from living a full life.” —Lori Feathers, World Literature
Today
“Masterful . . . profound.” —Rain Taxi Review of Books
“...an under-appreciated work of genius.” —The National Book
Review
“Archipelago’s recent edition of The Birds (1957), one of Vesaas’s
masterpieces, is an excellent opportunity for English readers to
become acquainted with his work.” —Reading in Translation
“True visionary power.” —Sunday Telegraph
“A spare, icily humane story . . . The character of Mattis, absurd
and boastful, but also sweet, pathetic and even funny, is shown
with great insight. The translation conveys successfully a
concetration of style and feeling that seems to be Vesaas’
characteristic mark as a novelist.” —Sunday Times
“Beautiful and subtle.” —Scotsman
“The Birds is a true literary masterpiece—most likely one of the
most beautifully haunting novels you will ever read.” —Nordic
Bookblog
“The inexplicable thoughts that recur to Mattis will do so to
readers as well, long after the book has ended.” —Hannah
Sheldon-Dean, Bookslut
“Disarmingly insightful . . . Vesaas conveys subtle emotional
rhythms with masterful economy.” —Tablet
“A masterpiece.” —Literary Review
“A powerful book, [The Birds] wounds you . . . Its complexity is
rendered with the simplicity of poetic beauty that only a true poet
such as Vesaas could pull off. I guarantee you, you will never
recover.” —Chris Via of Leaf by Leaf
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