An extract from Is Mother Dead by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund
Read an extract from Vigdis Hjorth’s novel Is Mother Dead?. Translated by Charlotte Borslund it was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023
Charlotte Barslund
Charlotte Barslund is a hugely experienced translator of Scandinavian novels and plays.
Barslund has worked with writers such as: Samuel Bjork, Jo Nesbo, Karin Fossum, Thomas Enger, Jonas T. Bengtsson, Carsten Jensen, Lotte and Søren Hammer, Lone Theils, Steffen Jacobsen, Sissel-Jo Gazan, Jakob Melander, Jesper Stein and Lene Kaaberbøl. Recent novels translated include the Arctic crime novels The Girl Without Skin and Cold Fear by Mads Peder Nordbo, Resin by Ane Riel (shortlisted for the 2019 Petrona Award) and A House In Norway by Vigdis Hjorth (longlisted for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award). Her translation of Per Petterson’s I Curse the River of Time was shortlisted for the Independent 2011 Foreign Fiction award. Barslund was born in Denmark but lives in the English town of Winchester.
Charlotte Barslund’s translation of Is Mother Dead was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, announced on March 14, 2023.
- By
- Vigdis Hjorth
- Translated by
- Charlotte Barslund
- Published by
- Verso
‘To mother is to murder, or close enough,’ thinks Johanna, as she looks at the spelling of the two words in Norwegian.
