Description
The 'greatest Norwegian contemporary writer' (Knausgård) finally in English: An exhilarating, hallucinatory exploration of language, isolation, and the search for an authentic life.
Deep in the Norwegian wilderness, Tomas Olsen Myrbråten is a man at war with the modern world.. After a bureaucratic cultural assignment spirals into a public scandal and his desperate flight, Tomas attempts to shed civilisation to become a 'man of the forest'.
Long acclaimed in Norway, but considered untranslatable, Thure Erik Lund is now available in English for the first time in David M. Smith's radically brilliant translation. The Mystery of What Befell in the Ditch is a profound, hallucinatory exploration of language and isolation, particularly about how we make a language our own, how we distinguish our own thoughts from those that have been fed into us. This cornerstone of contemporary Norwegian literature is an exhilarating journey into the dark heart of the life of the mind.
Author: Thure Erik Lund
Publisher: And Other Stories
Published: 10/20/2026
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 7.70h x 5.10w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9781916751712
ISBN10: 1916751717
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Absurdist
- Fiction | World Literature | Norway
About the Author
Thure Erik Lund (b. 1959) is one of Norway's most innovative and highly acclaimed authors. He made his debut with Tanger in 1992, for which he was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas' Debutant Prize. He has since published eight more novels and two collections of essays, which has earned him the Norwegian Critic's Award, The Scandinavian Award for best contemporary novel, and The Natt og Dag Book of the Year Award.
David M. Smith translates Norwegian fiction into English. He has a Master of Fine Arts in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa. His thesis at Iowa was a translated excerpt from Dag Solstad's Novel 1987. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.