As clear and relentless as the cold air, Love unfolds over one winter’s evening. Single mother Vibeke and her son Jon have just moved to a small, remote town in the north of Norway. Tomorrow Jon will be nine. As Vibeke gets changed after work, Jon wonders what surprises his mother has prepared for him. He leaves the house certain she will make him a cake. But preoccupied with concerns of her own, she too ventures out. Inextricably linked yet desperately at odds, mother and son make their lonely ways through the unforgiving night.

Beautifully translated into English by Martin Aitken, this edition is the twenty-eighth international publication of Love. Hanne Orstavik’s astonishing grasp of human fragility and her economy of form power this acknowledged masterpiece of Norwegian literature.