Novel
A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks
En flyktning krysser sitt spor
Aksel Sandemose · 1933
Synopsis
Espen Arnakke, thirty-four years old, married and the father of two children, settled in Norway, looks back on the man he killed seventeen years earlier, a certain John Wakefield. To understand his act, he goes back to his childhood in Jante, the small town in Denmark where he grew up and whose unwritten law forbids anyone to think himself somebody. The narrative moves in fragments, from childhood to the years as a sailor and lumberjack across the Atlantic, without following the order of time.
Context
The novel appeared in 1933 with Tiden, in Oslo. In it he sets out the ten commandments of the Law of Jante, the first of which, according to Britannica, forbids believing oneself special; the author said it was more widespread in Brooklyn than in his home town. Eugene Gay-Tifft translated it into English for Knopf as early as 1936. The French translation, by Alex Fouillet, appeared in 2014 with the Presses universitaires de Caen, with a preface by Philippe Bouquet.
Who it is for
Translated into French and English: a long narrative that keeps returning to scenes from childhood instead of moving straight ahead.
Prizes and reception
The best novel by its author according to Britannica, and the one that made the commandments of Jante known.
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