The Morning Star

By Karl Ove Knausgaard, Martin Aitken (translator),

Book cover of The Morning Star

Book description

Experience a major new literary universe in the making

'I read The Morning Star compulsively and stayed awake all night after finishing it' Brandon Taylor

Nine lives will be forever changed . . .
One long night in August, Arne and Tove are staying with their children in their summer…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Morning Star as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book is 666 pages long, a number which I believe traditionally means something diabolical. The book’s last words are: ‘Last night, a new star appeared in the sky […] I know what it means. It means that it has begun:’ as we end our reading, Knausgaard sends us back to the beginning.
The action lasts two days. The star’s arrival is experienced by some 18 or so main first-person protagonists, plus hundreds of other characters, mostly ordinary Norwegians, who live through disturbing and often anguished hours. They suffer distressing, surreal adventures – one man, in his car, crushes battalions…

Paradoxically, this book evokes both realism and otherworldly strangeness, in part because our world is in fact so mysterious (just below the surface, at least). It is a stunning mix of the mundane and the profound.

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