By Tomas Espedal
Often mentioned in the same breath as Karl Ove Knausgård, Tomas Espedal has been hailed at home and abroad as one of Scandinavia's most important writers for his radical and…
Often mentioned in the same breath as Karl Ove Knausgård, Tomas Espedal has been hailed at home and abroad as one of Scandinavia's most important writers for his radical and stirring mix of fiction and autobiography.
My Private Life is a photo-book, as well as a novel. The photographer is Tomas Espedal, and the pictures document his life and surroundings through the past fifteen years: There are pictures of Espedal’s friends and family, the houses he’s lived in, the desks he’s sat at while writing, hotel beds he has slept in. The accompanying text charts the development of an artist’s life and discusses the intimate relation between life and art, and how the two more or less become one, as Espedal has displayed in each book he has written since the turn of the century.
Espedal reveals himself as an eminent photographer, with a sharp eye for motifs where most of us wouldn’t even think of looking for them.
Foreign Sales Denmark, Batzer & Co
Praise
«Still, it's wonderful to read and look in this book. The photos are so beautiful and deep with their rich colours, and there is is a powerful interplay with the short texts of Espedal's always distinct, musical prose»Berlingske Tidende, Denmark
«Strong and beautiful from Espedal [...] My Private Life is a candidly open photography book and novel. The content is honest, unvarnished and full of yearnings. [...] The moments caught in photographs seem to be timeless. This is also greatly enhanced by the design of the book.»VG, 5 out of 6 stars
«My Private Life is an accessible and demanding book that forms a fine introduction to Espedal’s writing for those unfamiliar with his work, while it also opens up new vistas for experienced Espedal readers. It ought to be left lying out, not placed on a shelf, for it is a book the reader will want to return to again and again.»Stavanger Aftenblad
«To write is to choose and discard - and it is the literary appropriate episodes of every day life which are chosen. My Private Life consists of those chosen moments. It is filled with the authors' private photographs from the last 15 years, combined with short aphorismic texts.»Bergens Tidende
