Conscience

Monika is 13 years old and knows that all her experiences will soon belong to a time past. She’s 27, and an older professor’s mistress. She’s 37 years old and lives with Geir; they’ve just had Maiken, who rhythmically sucks upon her pacifier, a strip of bare skin at the back of her head. She’s 46, with a shedfull of quarrelsome chickens, thinking to herself that life is a series of failed attempts at fusing things together. She’s 52, and in the mirror above the fruit and vegetables in the grocery store, she sees her mother’s face.

Conscience is a novel of the restless yearning after a life filled with passion, purpose and a sense of belonging – but also about the sense that everything slips, that nothing can be held in place, that perhaps people neither wish to nor can bear the thought of actually belonging to someone.

Nominated for the Brage Prize 2018

Nominated for the Norwegian Booksellers' Award 2018

Nominated for the Literary Critics' Prize 2018

Nominated for the Youth's Critics' Prize 2018

Nominated for the P2-Listeners' Prize 2018

Foreign Sales Sweden, Bonnier Denmark, Rosinante Russia, Polyandria Poland, Wydawnictwo Pauza

Swedish praise

“Conscience is an impressively dense, sharp-eyed and intense novel about contemporary women’s lives in a well-oiled middle-class Norway, a life that Marstein sees in all its aspects, typical and drab.”Aftonbladet

“In each chapter, the narrator lands at a point in the main character Monika’s life: Monika at 13 years old, Monika at 20, at 27, 37, 46, 50, 54, soon to be 60. The sense of presence is total at every age, her temperament changing as the years go by, and the translator, Lotta Eklund, has succeeded in conveying the proper intensity.” Dagens Nyheter

Norwegian praise

"Conscience is probably Marstein’s most accessible novel to date, an intense, riveting family drama over almost five decades. It has become an immersive reading experience that does not shy away from difficult, shocking questions, with a protagonist who provokes both sympathy and irritation."5 out of 6 stars, VG

"... you rarely get such a strong sense of actually seeing another person’s life in distilled and undiluted form as in Trude Marstein’s latest novel."Dagens Næringsliv

"Marstein’s triumph (...) The romance is experienced as, at the same time recognizable and amazingly alien. This is due not least to the language and the flow of narrative, the novel’s organization of the rich material that constitutes Monica’s life.”Klassekampen

"Marstein belongs to the top level of Norwegian contemporary authors,"5 out of 6 stars, Tønsberg Blad

"I think that Trude Marstein will dominate the literary scene this autumn. (...) It's beautiful and extraordinary well written"5 out of 6 stars, Fædrelandsavisen

5 out of 6 stars, Bergens Tidende

Danish praise

“…one of the new first ladies of Scandinavian literature.”

“Norwegian Trude Marstein has written a near-perfect novel about a life led by passion.”Jylland-posten

“Trude Marstein is a wonderful stylist. She has an ability to construct spaces upon meagre specifics so that one feels as though one is actually there […] Marstein sketches a merciless but tender portrait of a person who, although she is unwilling to die, deep down has difficulty both giving and receiving […] A fabulous novel.”Kristelig Dagblad, 5 out of 6 stars

“Trude Marstein has written a seriously entertaining novel about the Ibsenian average human and the lives of the Norwegian middle class. It is an unquestionably above-average book.”Politiken, 5 out of 6 stars

“Trude Marstein writes fantastically good contemporary literature and delivers an eminent psychological portrait of a complex woman vacillating between emotion and reason […] Powerful, disturbing and moving.”Femina, 6 out of 6 stars