What makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another? The year is coming to a close and Asle, an ageing painter and widower who lives alone on the southwest coast of Norway, is reminiscing about his life. His only friends are his neighbour, Asleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjorgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgangers - two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions about life, death, love, light and shadow, faith and hopelessness. Written in melodious and hypnotic `slow prose', THE OTHER NAME: SEPTOLOGY I-II is an indelible and poignant exploration of the human condition by Jon Fosse, `a major European writer' (Karl Ove Knausgaard), in which everything is always there, and past and present flow together.

Author Biography

Jon Fosse was born in 1959 on the west coast of Norway and has written over thirty books and twenty-eight plays that have been translated into over 40 languages. His first novel, RED, BLACK, was published in 1983, and was followed by such works as MELANCHOLIA I & II, ALISS AT THE FIRE, and MORNING AND EVENING. He is one of the world's most produced living playwrights. In 2007, Fosse became a chevalier of the Ordre national du Merite of France, and he was awarded the International Ibsen Award in 2010. In 2011, he moved into Grotten, an honorary residence for artists on the grounds of the Royal Palace in Oslo. He was awarded the European Prize for Literature in 2014 and the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2015. He currently has homes in Bergen, Oslo, and in Hainburg, Austria.