2005 Shortlist
The Half Brother
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Growing up in sixties Oslo, Barnum lives with an extended, eccentric family and his older half-brother, Fred, who was conceived after the rape of their mother in the dying days of World War II. Barnum seems to have stopped growing and Fred, implicated in a tragedy that leaves a family member dead, becomes mute – only roused when he hears ‘Living Doll’ one time too many. The two half-brothers embark on their seperate courses, Fred becoming a boxer and Barnum a scriptwriter, and it is twenty-seven years before a fax from their dying mother offers Barnum the chance to see his brother again.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Kenneth
Steven
Kenneth Steven is a full-time writer and translator from Highland Scotland. He has published some twenty books and travels all over the UK and Europe undertaking lecture tours and school residencies. His volume of selected poems, Wildscape, was published by Peterloo in England in December 2007. He translated the Nordic Prize-winning novel The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen; the translation went on to be short-listed for two international awards.
Kenneth Steven is a full-time writer and translator from Highland Scotland. He has published some twenty books and travels all over the UK and Europe undertaking lecture tours and school residencies. His volume of selected poems, Wildscape, was published by Peterloo in England in December 2007. He translated the Nordic Prize-winning novel The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen; the translation went on to be short-listed for two international awards.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Date published
05/02/2004
Country
Norway
Original Language
Norwegian
Publisher
Vintage
Translator
Kenneth Steven