The Burnt-out Town of Miracles
2009 Shortlist

The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles

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ABOUT
THE BOOK

1939. A winter in Finland so deadly people called it the white hell. The inhabitants of a small town burn their cherished homes and, with them, their history, as they flee invading Russian troops. But one man refuses to leave: a simple woodsman with an extraordinary instinct for survival. Set against a landscape of light and darkness, blazing fires and life-robbing cold, The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles is a tale of cowards and unexpected heroes, of powerful friendships, lives bound together by war, where nothing matters more than finding the path back home.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Roy
Jacobsen

Roy Jacobsen has twice been nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literary Award: for Seierherrene in 1991, and Frost in 2003, and in 2009 he was shortlisted for the Dublin Impac Award for his novel The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles. The Unseen was Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017.

Roy Jacobsen has twice been nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literary Award: for Seierherrene in 1991, and Frost in 2003, and in 2009 he was shortlisted for the Dublin Impac Award for his novel The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles. The Unseen was Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Don
Bartlett and Don Shaw

Don Bartlett is the translator behind some of the most read and talked about Norwegian books of recent years. From Jo Nesbø’s successful crime books to the titanic introspection of Karl Ove Knausgård and his seminal My Struggle series. Bartlett has worked with some of the biggest names in Norwegian literature and has helped make their books into international best-sellers. We caught up with him at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich’s Dragon Hall to chat with him about his career as a translator, the runaway success of Knausgård’s My Struggle, the recent rise in Norwegian literature and just how difficult it is to translate dialect into English.

Don Shaw is an author and a teacher of Danish. He is the author of the standard Danish–Thai/Thai–Danish dictionaries. He has also worked with Don Bartlett on translating Erland Loe.

Don Bartlett is the translator behind some of the most read and talked about Norwegian books of recent years. From Jo Nesbø’s successful crime books to the titanic introspection of Karl Ove Knausgård and his seminal My Struggle series. Bartlett has worked with some of the biggest names in Norwegian literature and has helped make their books into international best-sellers. We caught up with him at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich’s Dragon Hall to chat with him about his career as a translator, the runaway success of Knausgård’s My Struggle, the recent rise in Norwegian literature and just how difficult it is to translate dialect into English.

Don Shaw is an author and a teacher of Danish. He is the author of the standard Danish–Thai/Thai–Danish dictionaries. He has also worked with Don Bartlett on translating Erland Loe.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
27/12/2007
Country
Norway
Original Language
Norwegian
Author
Publisher
John Murray Publishers
Translator
Don Bartlett and Don Shaw

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