Siamese

Stig Sterbakken, Stokes Schwartz

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Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Dalkey Archive Press
16 January 2025

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Fiction: special features

A brutally comic portrait of marriage, taken to extremes reminiscent of the work of Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard.

Edwin Mortens is almost blind, but has good hearing; his wife Erna is hard of hearing, but can see perfectly. Edwin sits locked in his bathroom all day, every day, trying to liberate his mind from his body. The experiment is going relatively well: nearly all his bodily functions have ceased, his limbs are in a state of decay, and his digestive system is in the process of breaking down. ""This body,"" he says, ""is a sewer.""

To pass the time, Edwin dedicates his days to chewing gum and screaming at his wife, on whom he is, nonetheless, entirely dependent; meanwhile, Erna's life, despite Edwin's constant abuse, revolves around her hideous husband. Edwin and Erna live in a state of perfect equilibrium-fueled by habit, cruelty, humiliation, and quite possibly love-until their building's young superintendent is called to replace a lightbulb in Edwin's bathroom, and the ""Siamese twins"" find themselves embroiled in a new and vicious struggle for power.

By: Stig Sterbakken
Translated by: Stokes Schwartz
Imprint: Dalkey Archive Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 127mm,
ISBN: 9781628976021
ISBN 10: 1628976020
Pages: 190
Publication Date: 16 January 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 Self-Control and Through the Night (also published by Dalkey Archive). Stokes Schwartz 's translation work includes technical, historical, and literary pieces. He studied Scandinavian languages and literature-with a concentration in Norwegian-at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Minnesota, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.