The Child

(Paperback)

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Description

A young mother speaks to her second born child. Since the drama of childbirth, all feels calm. The world is new and full of surprises, even though dangers lurk behind every corner; a car out of control, disease ever-present in the air, the unforgiving speed of time.

She tells of the times before the child was born, when the world felt unsure and enveloped in darkness, of long nights with an older lover, of her writing career and the precariousness of beginning a relationship and then a family with her husband, Bo.

A portrait of modern motherhood, The Child is a love story about what it means to be alive and stay alive, no matter how hard the journey.

Reviews

The Child pays close, intelligent attention to motherhood and art. It's written with memorable precision and love, and I was sorry to finish it.--Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater

I loved this book, as raw and shimmering as the early nights of motherhood; through its poetic fragments and deep thought the wonder, fear and joy of intimacy shine.--Liz Berry, author of The Republic of Motherhood

Bold, witty, and deeply existential, Monsterhuman is a bildungsroman that turns the story of a young woman's chronic fatigue syndrome into an intellectual journey, at once grave and comic.--Paris Review

Author Bio

Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold made a sensational debut with The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am, published by Dalkey Press in English. The book won the Vesaas First Book Award, was shortlisted for the IMPAC Prize and has been sold to publishers in more than 25 countries. She is the author of four acclaimed novels, a book of poetry and a children's book.

Martin Aitken is the translator of numerous novels from Danish and, most recently, Norwegian and Swedish, including works by Peter Heg, Ida Jessen, Kim Leine, Hanne rstavik, and Karl Ove Knausgaard. His translations of short stories and poetry have appeared in many literary journals and magazines. In 2012 he was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation's Nadia Christensen Translation Prize. He lives and works in Denmark.