Melancholy I-II

Winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature"Melancholy I-II" is a fictional exploration of the life and struggles of Lars Hertervig, a 19th-century Norwegian artist known for his luminous landscapes. Despite his talent, Hertervig battled mental illness and died in poverty in 1902. In this intense narrative, crafted by Jon Fosse, readers are drawn into Hertervig’s tumultuous psyche as a single day's events trigger his mental collapse. As a student under Hans Gude at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, Hertervig is overwhelmed by self-doubt about his abilities and consumed by love for Helene Winckelmann, the daughter of his landlady. His obsessive passion and tormented sexual fantasies result in Helene's family insisting on his departure. Tormented by hallucinations and lacking refuge, Hertervig oscillates between a cafe — enduring the ridicule of his urbane peers — and the Winckelmann apartment, to which he desperately seeks access. This purgatory of rejection and despair spirals him further into insanity. "Melancholy I-II" is now available in English as a single volume for the first time, earning its place as a seminal work by Jon Fosse, hailed as ‘the Beckett of the twenty-first century’ by Le Monde.The above description is provided by the publisher.