
A New Name Septology VI-VII - Reading Guide
Use this guide to inform your reading of A New Name, the final movement in Jon Fosse’s monumental Septology which draws together art, death, and the idea of God.
Jon Fosse delivers both a transcendent exploration of the human condition and a radically ‘other’ reading experience - incantatory, hypnotic, and utterly unique. Translated by Damion Searls.
Asle is an ageing painter who lives alone on the coast of Norway. His only friends are his neighbour, Åsleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers - two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions. Written in melodious and hypnotic ‘slow prose’, this is the final instalment of Fosse’s Septology, the major prose work by ‘the Beckett of the twenty-first century’ (Le Monde).
About the Author
Jon Fosse was born in 1959 on the west coast of Norway and is the recipient of countless prestigious prizes, both in his native country and abroad.About the Translator
Damion Searls is a translator from German, Norwegian, French and Dutch - and a writer in English.