Brooklyn Book Festival presents readings from "I Curse the River of Time" by Per Petterson on Sept 12th. With his trademark quietude without the violence, you get unfiltered Petterson. Petterson also reads at Barnes & Noble Union Square on Sept 14th.
It is 1989 and all over Europe Communism is crumbling. Arvid Jansen, 37, is in the throes of a divorce. At the same time, his mother is diagnosed with cancer. Over a few intense autumn days, we follow Arvid as he struggles to find a new footing in his life, while all the established patterns around him are changing at staggering speed.
As he struggles to negotiate the present, he casts his mind back to holidays on the beach with his brothers, to courtship, and to his early working life, when as a young Communist he abandoned his studies to work on a production line. "I Curse the River of Time" is an honest, heartbreaking yet humorous portrayal of a complicated mother-son relationship told in Petterson’s precise and beautiful prose.
Per Petterson (b 1952) worked for several years as an unskilled labourer, a bookseller, a writer and a translator until he made his literary debut in 1987 with the short story collection ASKE I MUNNEN, SAND I SKOA, which was widely acclaimed by critics. He made his literary breakthrough in 2003 with the prize-winning novel UT OG STJÆLE HESTER, which has been translated to 40 languages so far.