A novel about impossible love and impossible life from the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Death in the Family. The haunting new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Death in the Family. The year is 1976. Syvert is on his way back to his wife and two sons after a work trip when his car breaks down outside Arendal and he has to spend the night in the city. It is winter and bitterly cold; ice covers the strait all the way to the sea, so thick that cars can drive on it. There, almost home, but caught up in memories of his doomed love affair with Asya, a space opens between the known and the unknown, both in the city, as Syvert wanders the streets in the dark, and within him. Arendal is a novel about impossible love and impossible life, about ships of the dead, fire and ice, dizzying starry skies and a man trying to find his foothold in the world. PRAISE FOR KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD: 'Absorbs you utterly' Sunday Times 'One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I've ever read' Brandon Taylor 'Addictive' Daily Telegraph 'Brilliant storytelling . . . Epic' Independent 'As accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama' Spectator 'Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive' New York Times Arendal is set in the Morning Star universe.

Details

ISBN13: 9781787305557
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 256
Edition:
Publication Date: 03 Nov 2026
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Publication City, Country: United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.4(H)x15.3(L)x4(W)700
Weight (gm): 700

Author Biography

Karl Ove Knausgaard (Author) Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle cycle has been heralded as a masterpiece all over the world. From A Death in the Family to The End, the novels move through childhood into adulthood and, together, form an enthralling portrait of human life. Knausgaard has been awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, the Brage Prize and the Jerusalem Prize. His work, which also includes the Seasons Quartet and the Morning Star sequence (The Morning Star, The Wolves of Eternity, The Third Realm and The School of Night) is published in thirty-six languages. Martin Aitken (Translator) Martin Aitken's translations of Scandinavian fiction are widely published. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the International Booker Prize, the Dublin Literary Award and the US National Book Awards, among other prizes. He received the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019 and, for the first book in the Morning Star cycle, the US National Translation Award in Prose in 2022. He lives in Denmark

Reviews

A joy to read * Klassekampen, Books of the Year *
Knausgaard masterfully depicts the outer surroundings of a dark and frozen city down to the smallest detail, while at the same time luring the reader inward into a far more obscure landscape... Arendal has good drive and is exciting. The fact that the plot is more concentrated does not make the themes narrower or smaller, quite the opposite * Dag og Tid *
Disturbing and obsessive * FÆDRELANDSVENNEN *
Sparkles in beautifully precise sentences and observations * DAGSAVISEN *