The three literary critics in news have chosen three favorites each from the book year 2023. Historical novels and contemporary novels, memoirs, poetry and essays were all included among the books they liked best. Here are their top nine. Unusually rich novel HISTORICAL AND CURRENT: A sadly topical novel about war and the war’s devastating consequences Photo: Gyldendal/Princeton University Book: “The world and all it contains” Author: Aleksandar Hemon Translated by: John Erik Bøe Lindgren Genre: Novel To depict the world and everything she manages in a novel is of course impossible. But the title is tantalizing: What kind of book is this? Bosnian-American Aleksandar Hemon takes us from Sarajevo via Tashkent to Shanghai. He describes sniper trenches in the First World War and homeless refugees in the aftermath of the last one. History is bitter, but not without hope. A defiant sense of the burlesque is visible in the text, where different nationalities meet and make the story multi-voiced – and not least multilingual. Survival is a mantra in the book. The goal is to avoid La gran eskuridad. Aleksandar Hemon writes in protest against forgetfulness. He gives historical events relevance in our own time. Playful and sharp PLAY: Ali Smith plays with his imagination. Photo: OKTOBER/SARAH WOOD Book: “Other times” Author: Ali Smith Translated by: Merete Alfsen Genre: Novel Scottish Ali Smith is an author who rarely delivers anything indifferent. After her impressive seasonal quartet, which was written during the pandemic, the companion “Andre tider” came in Norwegian this spring. The play with language is there, as is the desire for connections between centuries, and unexpected bonds between people. The book is full of curiosity and generosity. Smith mixes fact and adventure, and takes readers on invigorating detours to new insights. This is a smart novel about captivity and freedom in the age of the corona. Skinless about loss POEM COLLECTION: Ocean Voung is queer, vulnerable and supreme. Photo: Samlaget / Tom Hines Book: “Tida er ei mor” Author: Ocean Vuong Translated by: Mathias R. Samuelsen Genre: Poetry The loss of a mother is not an original setting in literature, but Ocean Vuong handles the loss in his own personal way. The author came to the United States with his mother as a refugee from Vietnam when he was the size of a fist. In the poem, he describes what it has been like to grow up in a new homeland with a mother and a grandmother who could neither read nor write, and who could not easily acquire the new language. Vuong writes about the band to his mother, which was not at all without knots. He writes about identity, about being placed in a tight box of pundits who have expectations of what a multicultural, poor and gay author should write about. It is painful, beautiful and skinless. Anyone who is not moved by this collection has a heart of stone. Book with a long life NOSTALGY: Ia Genberg takes us to the time around the turn of the millennium. Photo: Sara Mackey / Forlaget Oktober Book: “Detaljene” Author: Ia Genberg Translated by: Bodil Engen Genre: Romance Friendship. Love. The objects that remind me. People. Through short portraits of four people, Ia Genberg describes an entire era. Namely the old days. Alias the 1990s. The time when you could lose people, without finding them again on mobile or online. When everyone smoked inside, used paper maps and waited by the landline. Great art in a compressed format, in a novel that grows and grows even after reading. Luminous memoirs GOOD MEMORY: Hilary Mantel’s memoir was chosen by The New York Times as one of the 50 best of the last 50 years. Photo: Forlaget Press Book: “Shadows of life you could have lived” Author: Hilary Mantel Translated by: Hege Mehren Genre: Memoirs The author Hilary Mantel (1952-2022) received much praise for the Wolf Age trilogy about the Cromwell era. But I saw her memoirs even higher. With solid doses of bitter humour, and her own British touch, Mantel writes about growing up and life as a writer, and about the disastrously unsuccessful treatment she (didn’t) receive for endometriosis. She writes raw and hurtful about the body. About involuntary childlessness. About everything that never was. What does one do with all the broken dreams? Never sentimental, just wise and original. Luminous. Fresh and festive RICH OF KNOWLEDGE: Tore Renberg exuberates and entertains. At the same time, there is much to learn from his book. Photo: HÅKON MOSVOLD LARSEN/NTB/OCTOBER Book: “The Lung Flow Test” Author: Tore Renberg Genre: Novel Who would have thought that a historical court drama would be one of the most festive reading experiences of the year? With the “Lungeflyteprøven” Tore Renberg takes us to Germany in the 17th century. A young woman stands accused of killing her own newborn baby. Can a future-oriented lawyer help? Together with an innovative doctor? In any case, they make a solid attempt, in this wonderfully bubbly and at the same time instructive story. Here are executioners and choirboys, priests and upstarts. Law, theology and science. Fresh humour, and a lot of energy, also linguistically. Witty and lying PLAY ALIVE: British Martin Amis left the world on 19 May this year. In what was to be his last book, he seems sprightly alive. Photo: Amanda Edwards / AFP Book: “On the inside” Author: Martin Amis Translated by: Pål H Aasen Genre: Autobiographical novel Mockumentary calls British documentaries that are not actually true. “On the inside” is a fake memoir. But here it says about life. Martin Amis has actually written a novel about his three best friends, or model. But at the same time it is a novel about himself, written in the form of a memoir. And you certainly don’t see the entire post-war era passing by on the road either. Does that sound complicated? No! Radiant! Fun! And very British. Write the story of her life DOUBLE MEANING: Judith Hermann has written the story of her life both figuratively and literally. Photo: Niklas Lello / Pelikanen Book: “We should have told each other everything” Author: Judith Hermann Translated by: Sverre Dahl Genre: Essay collection This little book is also something other than it pretends to be. German Judith Hermann had been commissioned to write a lecture on her own authorship. It was a deeply personal story. It becomes immediately moving when she tells about growing up with her mother, father and grandmother west of the wall, in the district of Neukölln. About growing up with a mentally ill father. About creating a new family in adulthood. About summer evenings that never end. This is also a book about being in Berlin, as it was there before. When the ugly German capital was the world’s most beautiful city. This year’s literary newcomers ON THE INSIDE: The super-talented Oliver Lovrenski shook Norwegian literature with his debut book. Book: “When we were younger” Author: Oliver Lovrenski Genre: Novel The super talent Oliver Lovrenski landed heavily in the Norwegian book world. The reader is slightly shaken back. Most of all, “When we were younger” is similar to Lars Saabye Christensen’s “Beatles”, only in an updated version. Four friends conquer the rooms in the city that young people of that age have access to. The doors that are closed, they kick open – as this 19-year-old debutant kicked open the door to the literary parnass in 2023. This is a very strong debut about youth at the tipping point.
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The critics’ favorite books from 2023 – Reviews and recommendations
