Self-Control

Stig Sæterbakken, Seán Kinsella

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Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Dalkey Archive Press
28 August 2025

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

The second volume in Stig Sæterbakken’s loosely connected “S Trilogy,” Self-Control moves from the dark portrait of codependent marriage featured in the acclaimed Siamese to a world of solitary loneliness and repression.

A middle-aged man, Andreas Feldt, feeling that he is unable to communicate with his adult daughter over the course of a friendly lunch, announces on an inexplicable whim that he is going to get a divorce. Though his daughter is initially shocked, she quickly assimilates this information and all returns to normal. Faced with this virtual invisibility—for no matter what actions he takes, the world seems to take no notice—Andreas is cut adrift from the certainties of his life and forced to navigate through a society where it seems virtually everyone is only one loss of self-control away from an explosion of dissatisfaction and rage.

By: Stig Sæterbakken
Translated by: Seán Kinsella
Imprint: Dalkey Archive Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 215mm, Width: 139mm,
ISBN: 9781628975796
ISBN 10: 1628975792
Pages: 172
Publication Date: 28 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Stig Saeterbakken (1966 2012) was one of Norway's most acclaimed contemporary writers. His novels include Through the Night and Siamese (also published by Dalkey Archive). Sean Kinsella was born in Ireland and holds an MPhil in literary translation from Trinity College, Dublin. He has previously translated work by Frode Grytten and Bjarte Breiteig into English, and currently resides in Norway with his wife and two daughters.

Reviews for Self-Control

"""In all of Stig Saeterbakken's work, there is a genuine desire to understand, to know. There is an almost boundless curiosity about the human condition and its many expressions. . . . In all that Saetterbakken did, there was a tremendous faith in literature and its power."" --Karl Ove Knausgård ""One of the most interesting contemporary authors in Europe: always controversial and never uncomplicated, [Saeterbakken] forces the reader to confront the less flattering sides of both self and society."" --Eurozine"