Book

Unformed landscape / Peter Stamm ; translated by Michael Hofmann.

ISBN: 1590511409 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN: 9781590511404
Physical Description: 161 pages ; 20 cm.
Publisher: New York : Handsel Books, ©2001.
Copyright: &copy;2001.

Stamm, Peter, 1963- (Author). Hofmann, Michael, 1957- (Added Author).

Summary:

"Unformed landscape" begins in a small village on a fjord in the Finnmark, on the northeastern coast of Norway, where the borders between Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia lie covered in snow and darkness, where the real borders are between day and night, summer and winter, and between people. Here, a sensitive young woman like Kathrine finds few outlets for her desires. Half Norwegian, half Sami (an indigenous people), Kathrine works for the customs office inspecting the fishing boats arriving regularly in the harbor. She is in her late 20s, has a son from an early marriage, and has drifted into a second loveless marriage to a man whose cold and dominating conventionality forms a bold stroke through the unformed landscape of her life. After she makes a discovery about her husband that deeply wounds her, Kathrine cuts loose from her moorings and her confusion and sets off in search of herself.