Wilful Disregard: A Novel About Love

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WINNER OF THE 2013 AUGUST PRIZE "Lena Andersson's Wilful Disregard is a story of the heart written with bracing intellectual rigor. It is a stunner, pure and simple." Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones Ester Nilsson is a sensible person in a sensible relationship. She knows what she thinks and she acts according to her principles. Until the day she is asked to give a lecture on renowned artist Hugo Rask. The man himself sits in the audience, spellbound, and when the two meet afterwards, he has the same effect on her. From now on Ester's existence is intrinsically linked to that day, and the chain of events that unravels will change her life forever. Bitingly funny and darkly fascinating Wilful Disregard is a story about total and desperate devotion and about how willingly we betray ourselves in the pursuit of love. PRAISE FOR WILFUL DISREGARD: A NOVEL ABOUT LOVE "This is a slim volume, but every word packs a punch; every other sentence is so wise and funny that it begs to be quoted..." The Guardian "I never thought a book about anxious Swedish intellectuals engaged in a philosophical back and forth would grip me like an airport read, but here we are. From the first page I was deep in the headspace of our protagonist, Esther, a woman willing to destroy her life for a man who barely acknowledges her." Lena Dunham in Lenny Letter

Reviews

Alas, most women have lived this story. Though few will have told it so well. Compelling and keenly observant. -- Lionel Shriver, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin
I never thought a book about anxious Swedish intellectuals engaged in a philosophical back and forth would grip me like an airport read, but here we are. From the first page I was deep in the headspace of our protagonist, Esther, a woman willing to destroy her life for a man who barely acknowledges her. -- Lena Dunham
Lena Andersson's Wilful Disregard is a story of the heart written with bracing intellectual rigor. It is a stunner, pure and simple. -- Alice Sebold, author of THE LOVELY BONES
Wilful Disregard by Lena Andersson describes a female writers new friendship with and eventual fixation on an older and more successful male artist. Hugo and Ester have an intense intellectual connection, which makes her feel like shes in love with him and makes him feel, well, like they have an intense intellectual connection (though hes willing to dabble in sex with her). Like Rachel Cusks Outline, Wilful Disregard is lacerating in its intelligence and honesty; it makes you waver between loathing and compassion for basically all humans. -- Curtis Sittenfeld, New Yorker Books of the Year

Love, famously, is blind. People in love can lose even the most basic critical faculties and become capable of monumental self-deception. Hardly a new story, but I don't think I've ever seen this particular myopia as astutely and entertainingly explored as in this stunning novel . . . bruise-tender in its detail and emotional candour.
This is a slim volume, but every word packs a punch; every other sentence is so wise and funny that it begs to be quoted. Andersson's gift for conjuring atmosphere and emotion out of small quotidian mishaps is extraordinary'

-- Julie Myerson * Guardian *
Andersson does a masterly job reeling in the reader * New York Times *
Brilliant and unflinching on obsession, on desperation, on the stuff of how people are capable of being to each other. Andersson writes smart, sharp-eyed, and often witheringly funny prose; nobody gets out of this situation with their pride, or their public persona, intact. Which is what makes it such addictive reading. -- Belinda McKeon, author of SOLACE and TENDER
Dry wit and sharp insight . . . If she sees an intellectual pretension, she pricks it * The Economist *
A compelling read, a deeply philosophical book that attempts to make sense of love in the modern world * Irish Examiner *
A cerebral cat's cradle of a novel * New Yorker *
A creepy lucid dissection of the tangled psychology of love. * M Magazine *
'Anderssons novel is refreshing for its willingness to look at sexual fixation with a womans gaze. I read Wilful Disregard full of both agonised secondhand embarrassment and admiration for Anderssons crisp prose. Ester is maddening, lovable . . . and recognisable to anyone whos ever had a day ruined by an unanswered text message. * Guardian *

Author Bio

Lena Andersson (b. 1970) is a novelist and columnist for Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's largest morning paper. She lives in Stockholm where she is considered one of the country's sharpest contemporary analysts. Wilful Disregard is her fifth novel and won Sweden's prestigious August Prize.