Lit in Translation

The School of Night

Nattskolen

Karl Ove Knausgaard (born 1968)

Translated by Martin Aitken

English editions

In English

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London, 1985: Kristian Hadeland arrives from Norway to train as a photographer, hungry for success, conceited and without scruples. His early years in the city bring one setback after another, along with a few encounters that shape him. The most important is with Hans, a Dutchman a decade his senior, who is fixated on machines, from early cameras and record players to the way computers are gradually swallowing the real world. Another is with Vivian, a stage director putting on Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, who wants Kristian to shoot pictures of the show. The novel then jumps ahead to 2009, when Kristian, now an acclaimed artist, is preparing a big career survey in New York, and asks what his triumph has cost.

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About the book

Form
Novel
Length
484 pages in the original
Set in
United Kingdom, United States, 1985–2009
Series
Morgenstjernen, book 4
First published
2023 by Oktober
Author's age
55 when first published
ISBN

9788249526963 (original)

9781787304208 (Harvill Secker, United Kingdom)

9780593832806 (Penguin Press, United States)

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