If no one ever died, what would happen then?

For several days, a bright new star in the sky above Norway has blazed over the restless lives of those below. Tove, an artist, is consumed by intense creativity as she spirals towards psychosis. Line falls in love with a musician named Valdemar and is lured to a secret death metal gig in a remote forest. Geir, a policeman, is investigating a ritual murder but chances upon something more horrifying even than the bodies in the trees - the last bodies he sees, because, as undertaker Syvert is the first to realise, people have stopped dying since the star appeared.

What is haunting the world - and why?

As profound as it is thrilling, Karl Ove Knausgaard's The Third Realm is a breathtaking novel about ordinary lives on the cusp of irrevocable change.

PRAISE FOR KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD:

'Ferociously readable' The Times

'Addictive' Daily Telegraph

'As accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama' Spectator

'Knausgaard retains the ability to lock you, as if in a tractor beam, into his storytelling' New York Times

'Casts an existential spell. . . captivating' Financial Times

'Knausgaard unspools a philosophical cop drama shot through with shivery horror. . . exquisitely channelled' Daily Mail

About the Author

Karl Ove Knausgaard (Author)
Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle cycle has been heralded as a masterpiece all over the world. From A Death in the Family to The End, the novels move through childhood into adulthood and, together, form an enthralling portrait of human life. Knausgaard has been awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, the Brage Prize and the Jerusalem Prize. His work, which also includes the Seasons Quartet and the Morning Star series (The Morning Star, The Wolves of Eternity and The Third Realm) is published in thirty-five languages.

Martin Aitken (Translator)
Martin Aitken's translations of Scandinavian literature number some 35 books. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the International DUBLIN Literary Award (2017) and the U.S. National Book Awards (2018), as well as the 2021 International Booker Prize. He received the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019.

Reviews
I still can't get enough...The compulsion to keep reading springs from the author's ability to transcribe patterns of thinking. His faith that access to other people's consciousness might make us feel less alone remains a profound - and distinctly literary - conviction * The Times *
Unsettling, disturbing and riveting... As we become privy to the characters musings on philosophy, religion, art, neuroscience and love, they grow ever more compelling.... as accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama series. There is no writer I would rather devour * Spectator *
Breathtaking...The book opens and closes with Tove...her mix of despair and insight, humour and visionary brilliance turns out to be what these novels need most... [The Third Realm] has such an electrifyingly capacious sense of what the novel can be * Guardian *
One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I've ever read. Novel by novel, Knausgaard is replenishing some feral charge to the world. This book made me afraid of the dark again. -- Brandon Taylor * Washington Post *
Intense... The presence of a detective investigating a ritual murder injects surprising pace, while distinctive meditations on mortality, the divine and mental illness prove enthralling * Mail on Sunday *



Book Information
ISBN 9781787304192
Author Karl Ove Knausgaard
Format Paperback
Page Count 512
Imprint Harvill Secker
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 618g
Dimensions(mm) 233mm * 152mm * 37mm