Maria Navarro Skaranger
Emily Forever (Emily forever)
NORWAY
BOOK
Emily is not even twenty and already pregnant, but the child’s father has no intention of settling down. Emily works in a supermarket where the owner tries to take care of her. Her neighbour, a lonely man whom Emily thinks must be a priest, also has an affection for her. And her mother is going to help her, too, having already moved into her apartment. But Emily doesn’t even seem to perceive what is happening to her… The empathetic narrator´s voice comments on Emily’s life and observes how the heroine is viewed by others, by those who know precisely who Emily is and how she should live. The result is a novel that honestly and sympathetically portrays people with no ambitions or interests and those who do what they can to help others.
Published by Host, 2023
AUTHOR
© I. O. Sivertsen
The Norwegian writer Maria Navarro Skaranger (*1994) debuted in 2015 with the novel All Foreigners Have Their Curtains Closed (Alle utlendinger har lukka gardiner). In her works, she refers to the environment of the poor suburb of Oslo, where she herself grew up. Her second novel, Book of Grief (Bok om sorg) (2018), in which she reflects on the loss of her brother, won the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature. Last year, she loosely followed up her novel Emily Forever (Emily forever) ( 2021) with her book Whistling in the Dark Wind (Jeg plystrer i den mørke vinden), for which she was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize.
TRANSLATION
Jitka Jindřišková
