Near Distance - (Biblioasis International Translation) by Hanna Stoltenberg (Paperback)

About the Book

"For her entire life, Karin has fled anything and anyone that tries to possess her. Her job demands little, she mostly socializes with men she meets online, and she's rarely in touch with Helene, her adult daughter. But when Helene's marriage is threatened, she turns, uncharacteristically, to her mother for commiseration, and a long weekend away in London. As the two women embark on their uneasy companionship, Karin's past, and the origins of her studied detachments, are cast in a new light, and she can no longer ignore their effects--on not only herself and her own relationships, but on her daughter's as well."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

"Stoltenberg's elegant prose makes each scene . . . so engaging that it gives plot a bad name."--John Self, Guardian

For her entire life, Karin has fled anything and anyone that tries to possess her. Her job demands little, she mostly socializes with men she meets online, and she's rarely in touch with Helene, her adult daughter. But when Helene's marriage is threatened, she turns, uncharacteristically, to her mother for commiseration, and a long weekend away in London. As the two women embark on their uneasy companionship, Karin's past, and the origins of her studied detachments, are cast in a new light, and she can no longer ignore their effects--on not only herself and her own relationships, but on her daughter's as well.

An unnerving, closely observed study of character--and the choices we do and do not make--Near Distance introduces Hanna Stoltenberg as a writer of piercing insight and startling lucidity.

Review Quotes

Praise for Near Distance

"Through flashbacks, and during an uncomfortable weekend trip to London, Stoltenberg's novel--which won Norway's prestigious Tarjei Vesaas first book award--probes the fraught relationship between fiftysomething Karin and her adult daughter, Helene."
--Globe and Mail

"Near Distance is a thoughtfully paced debut, and Stoltenberg moves between past and present with apparent ease."
--Literary Review of Canada

"Stoltenberg debuts with a stunning portrait of a strained mother-daughter relationship . . . Karin's contradictory emotional realities--at times harsh, at times gentle--are observed precisely and beautifully, and feel true to the complexities of real life. It's a winner."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Near Distance offers a strong character- and relationship-portrait . . . The scenes from a life add up, in this compact novel, to a complete and yet all-too-human, unfulfilled life."
--The Complete Review

"Karin and Helene are stymied by their own recalcitrance, resentments and insecurities, and equally hesitant to admit to their own faults and failures. They behave like real people."
--Winnipeg Free Press

"An intimate portrait of a woman who has never found her place but still yearns to find it."
--Ottawa Review of Books

"Grimly fascinating . . . infused with a sense of dread, and observed in microscopic detail from a bemused and calculated remove. Page after page leaves the reader anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop."
--Kirkus Reviews

"The writing astutely sketches personal and familial dysfunctions in absorbing past episodes, present relationships, and in the brief, focused storyline."
--Booklist

"A closely observed, well composed character study, with a sharp focus on the kind of persistent internal unease that can drive someone into themselves and away from those they care about . . . For a young author, this is a very confident debut."
--Roughghosts

"Near Distance tells the tragedy of missed communication and the awkwardness of familial love in a mother/daughter enmeshment. In Karin and Helene, Stoltenberg has created two of the most alive characters I've read in some while. With an uncanny grasp on weaving together the past, while keeping sharp focus on the present, Near Distance is a philosophical, disarming and devastatingly true depiction of women alive today--an utterly compelling trip."
--Elaine Feeney, Booker-nominated author of How to Build a Boat

"In this elegant translation of Hanna Stoltenberg's first novel, cool prose and precise observations overlay a heartrending and wine-soaked story about marriage, mothers and daughters, and the weird world of yoga, meditation, and self-help."
--Liz Harmer, author of Strange Loops

"This tense novel of loneliness and dissatisfaction made me laugh a lot--to begin with. A double award-winner in Norway, it tells the story of 53-year-old Karin and her daughter, Helene . . . Stoltenberg's elegant prose makes each scene--a trip to London, a memory of a past boyfriend--so engaging that it gives plot a bad name."
--John Self, The Guardian

"Near Distance is a powerful, highly original novel, reminiscent of early Ian McEwan. The growing sense of tension is so cleverly managed it gave me butterflies. The translation is exceptional."
--Miranda France, author of The Writing School

"An acutely observed depiction of a mother-daughter relationship and the unreachable distances that can open up between us, even when love is present."
--Rosalind Harvey, translator of Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize

About the Author

Hanna Stoltenberg (born 1989) grew up in Oslo and studied English at the University of Bristol. She is a regular contributor to the Norwegian literary journal Vinduet and works as an editor at the Munch museum. Her first novel, Near Distance (Nada in Norwegian) was published in 2019. It won the prestigious Tarjei Vesaas first book award and the NATT&DAG Oslo prize for best literary work. She is currently working on her second novel.

Wendy Harrison Gabrielsen moved to Oslo in 1987 after completing an MA in Translation at the University of Surrey. She has translated works of fiction as well as nonfiction, and in 2022 she was awarded the Wigeland Prize by the American-Scandinavian Foundation for an excerpt from her translation of Hanna Stoltenberg's Near Distance.