Asle is an ageing painter and widower who lives alone on the southwest coast of Norway. His only friends are his neighbour, Asleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjorgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgangers - two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions. In this second instalment of Jon Fosse's Septology, 'a major work of Scandinavian fiction' (Hari Kunzru), the two Asles meet for the first time in their youth. They look strangely alike, dress identically, and both want to be painters. At art school in Bjorgvin, Asle meets and falls in love with his future wife, Ales. Written in 'melodious and hypnotic slow prose', I is Another: Septology III-V is an exquisite metaphysical novel about love, art, God, friendship, and the passage of time.

About the Author

Jon Fosse was born in 1959 on the west coast of Norway. Since his 1983 fiction debut, Raudt, svart [Red, Black], Fosse has written prose, poetry, essays, short stories, children's books and over forty plays. In 2023, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 'for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable'. I is Another is the second volume in Septology.

Reviews

'Fosse's fusing of the commonplace and the existential, together with his dramatic forays into the past, make for a relentlessly consuming work: already Septology feels momentous.'
- Catherine Taylor, Guardian

'The reader of I is Another is both on the riverbank and in the water being carried forward, and around, by the great, shaping, and completely engrossing, flow of Fosse's words. It's a doubleness of view that is reflected in the characters, named Asle, who are both one and other, and through which we can see and feel the world, and ourselves, more clearly.'
- David Hayden, author of Darker with the Lights On

'Jon Fosse is a major European writer.'
- Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of My Struggle

Awards
Winner of Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 (Sweden). Long-listed for Dublin Literary Award 2022 (Ireland).



Book Information
ISBN 9781913097387
Author Jon Fosse
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint Fitzcarraldo Editions
Publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions