The Birds

byTarjei Vesaas, Torbjorn Stoverud (Translator), Michael Barnes (Translator)
This is the story of Mattis, a mentally handicapped man who lives with and is cared for by his older sister, Hege. Within their isolated, lakeside existence, Mattis cannot make sense of his tangled thoughts, frightening apparitions, surges of emotion and clever insights. When a travelling lumberjack attracts Hege's affections, the disruption is too much for Mattis to bear.

This Norwegian masterpiece sensitively captures a mystic command of the natural world, the prison of unfulfilled time and the fragility of the human mind. The narrative is sparse, poetic and contemplative, with an ending that crescendos into heartbreak.

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 Review

About Tarjei Vesaas

Tarjei Vesaas died at the age of 72 in the same small village where he was born: Vinje in Telemark, an isolated mountainous district of southern Norway. He wrote more than 25 novels and was nominated 30 times for the Nobel Prize.
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