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).
Jon Fosse
About the Author
Jon Fosse has been nominated for the International Booker Prize twice, in 2020 and 2022. He 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.
Damion Searls
About the Translator
Damion Searls is a translator from German, Norwegian, French and Dutch - and a writer in English.Watch videos
Images from the ceremony
Shortlisted authors Bora Chung, Mieko Kawakami, Jon Fosse, Geetanjali Shree and Claudia Piñeiro at the 2022 International Booker Prize Ceremony
© David Parry/PA
Shortlisted translators David Boyd, Sam Bett, Frances Riddle, Daisy Rockwell, Anton Hur and Damion Searls at the 2022 International Booker Prize Ceremony
© David Parry/PA
Booker judges Viv Groskop, Petina Gappah, Frank Wynne, Jeremy Tiang and Merve Emre at the 2022 International Booker Prize ceremony
© David Parry/PA
The 2022 International Booker Prize Ceremony.
© David Parry/PAOther nominated books by Jon Fosse
In the first volume of a trilogy of novels, Jon Fosse presents us with an indelible and poignant exploration of the human condition. Translated by Damion Searls.
Other nominated books by Damion Searls
In the first volume of a trilogy of novels, Jon Fosse presents us with an indelible and poignant exploration of the human condition. Translated by Damion Searls.
