Minna Needs Rehearsal Space

Description

Minna is feeling desperate. Lars has just dumped her by text message. Her friends are constantly flaunting their lovers, children and dogs (with Facebook as their cruel accomplice). And her neurotic sister is everywhere she turns. Minna needs security, and a place in Copenhagen to practise her music. Minna wants a child. Minna needs to stop being answerable to everyone. So, with only Ingmar Bergman for comfort and company, she decides to take a trip away from it all. In this highly original, playful, poignant yet funny novella, Dorthe Nors explores our struggles to find love, relate to others and simply be heard above the relentless noise of the modern

Dorthe Nors was born in 1970 and studied literature at the University of Aarhus. She is one of the most original voices in contemporary Danish literature. Nors has published four novels so far, including Mirror, Shoulder, Signal - shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize - and a collection of stories Karate Chop, also published by Pushkin Press. Karate Chop won the prestigious P. O. Enquist Literary Prize in 2014. She lives in rural Jutland, Denmark.

Gripping... how often can we honestly say that a book is unlike anything else? Yet here it is, unique in form and effect... Nors has found a novel way of getting into the human heart... even the author blurb is exciting: it tells us that as well as this novella and collection of stories, Nors has written four novels not yet translated into English. Oh! Don't make us wait -- John Self Guardian Dorthe Nors is a writer of moments-quiet, raw portraits of existential meditation, at times dyspeptic, but never unsympathetic Paris Review 'What We're Loving' Her words whip along, each idea cascading into the next: it's like having a window into someone's thoughts Independent Reading Nors's work, one is reminded of the thrills and dangers of living -- Yiyn Li Dorthe Nors's novella Minna Needs Rehearsal Space... set off fireworks in my brain: it's story told in one- or two-sentence headlines. I loved the way that the mostly one-line paragraphs marched down the page in prickly self-containment, with a lot of white space that demands a certain kind of attention from the reader The New Yorker A playful experiment in finding mood and meaning in the staccato prose of the newspaper headline or social media status update Bookanista Beautiful, moving, totally compelling account of one woman's yearning Nick Barley, director Edinburgh International Book Festival Nors is the Danish doyenne of the genre... [She] presents a hauntingly familiar world, which presents unpredicted turns that are at once astoundingly disturbing and curiously beautiful The Lady Nors has a great knack... for portraying the voids and fault lines in an unbalanced mind... crisp, quirky, jarringly funny TLS One of Denmark's most inventive and acclaimed contemporary writers Bookanista A stunningly original new voice from Denmark... Dorthe Nors has the fabulous talent (...) of restraint... A major new voice in European literature Booktrust