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Karate Chop & Minna Needs Rehearsal Space

Karate Chop & Minna Needs Rehearsal Space

by Dorthe Nors (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2015

    $3.25
Synopsis

Two daringly original works from the acclaimed Danish author Dorthe Nors, published back to back in a uniquely designed edition. 'Beautiful, faceted, haunting stories... Dorthe Nors is fantastic' Junot Diaz Karate Chop In these glittering, funny miniature tales, the acclaimed Danish writer Dorthe Nors sketches ordinary lives taking unexpected turns: a son's love for his father is tested when he suddenly discovers its fragility; a woman in an abusive relationship seeks to better understand the choices she has made; a man with dreams of self-improvement is haunted by deceit; and a daughter watches on silently as her mother's search for meaning ends in madness. Blending compassion with dark delight, Nors conjures up a flawed, unsettlingly familiar world with each cautionary glance - as fresh moments of wonder, romance and frail beauty are unexpectedly infiltrated by depravity, isolation and despair. Minna Needs Rehearsal Space Minna is feeling desperate. Lars has just dumped her by text message. Her friends are constantly flaunting their lovers, children and dogs (with Facebook as their cruel accomplice). And her neurotic sister is everywhere she turns. Minna needs security, and a place in Copenhagen to practise her music. Minna wants a child. Minna needs to stop being answerable to everyone. So, with only Ingmar Bergman for comfort and company, she decides to take a trip away from it all. In this highly original, playful, poignant yet funny novella, Dorthe Nors explores our struggles to find love, relate to others and simply be heard above the relentless noise of the modern age. Praise for Karate Chop 'Unsettling and poetic. . .. Some pieces, like one about a four-pound tomato, are oddly beautiful; others are brilliantly disturbing' New York Times Book Review 'Dorthe Nors is a writer of moments - quiet, raw portraits of existential meditation, at times dyspeptic, but never unsympathetic' Paris Review 'In the span of two pages, she is able to both build and unmake a character, achieving the same complexity that other writers require entire novels to establish... Karate Chop is the first of Nors' books to be translated to English but certainly won't be the last. Lovers of the art of literary fiction, students of psychology, and everyone looking for a quick, thought-provoking read should all indulge themselves in the subversive delight of this short story collection' Booklist 'The short-short stories in Danish sensation Nors's slim, potent collection,Karate Chop... evoke the weirdness and wonder of relating in the digital age' Vogue 'Nors illuminates an ominous world of disconnected people trying to make sense of their dislocation... Nors' affectless, matter-of-fact storytelling... is the perfect complement to the low-wattage desperation and inertia her characters feel...Karate Chop is just like that: It loves you and wants to teach you, but it also wants to harm you' Los Angeles Times 'In this collection of stories, Danish fiction comes off a little like Danish furniture, spare and sublime. Author Dorthe Nors knows how to capture the smallest moments and sculpt them into the unforgettable' Oprah 'Theintricately crafted stories in Karate Chop, from popular Danish writer Dorthe Nors, focus on ordinary occurrences . . . and then twist them into brilliantly slanted cautionary tales about desire, romance, deception, and dread' Elle Praise for Minna Needs Rehearsal Space 'The funniest Danish novel I have read in a long time' Information 'Satirically sharp and satirically funny' Weekendavisen 'This is music to a language lover's ears' Dagbladenes Bureau, 5-star review 'Tremendously insightful' Jyllands-Posten 'A poetic pearl' Berlingske Tidende 'One of the best books I have read' LitteraturNu 'Short, precise, and hugely entertaining' Litteratursiden

$3.25

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 176
 Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 26 Feb 2015
ISBN 10: 1782271198
ISBN 13: 9781782271192

Media Reviews
Unsettling and poetic... Some pieces, like one about a four-pound tomato, are oddly beautiful; others are brilliantly disturbing New York Times Book Review Dorthe Nors is a writer of moments-quiet, raw portraits of existential meditation, at times dyspeptic, but never unsympathetic Paris Review 'What We're Loving' In the span of two pages, she is able to both build and unmake a character, achieving the same complexity that other writers require entire novels to establish. (...) Karate Chop is the first of Nors' books to be translated to English but certainly won't be the last. Lovers of the art of literary fiction, students of psychology, and everyone looking for a quick, thought- provoking read should all indulge themselves in the subversive delight of this short story collection Booklist The short-short stories in Danish sensation Nors's slim, potent collection, Karate Chop ... Evoke the weirdness and wonder of relating in the digital age Vogue Nors illuminates an ominous world of disconnected people trying to make sense of their dislocation...Nors' affectless, matter-of-fact storytelling...is the perfect complement to the low-wattage desperation and inertia her characters feel...Karate Chop is just like that: It loves you and wants to teach you, but it also wants to harm you Los Angeles Times In this collection of stories, Danish fiction comes off a little like Danish furniture, spare and sublime. Author Dorthe Nors knows how to capture the smallest moments and sculpt them into the unforgettable Oprah The intricately crafted stories in Karate Chop, from popular Danish writer Dorthe Nors, focus on ordinary occurrences ... and then twist them into brilliantly slanted cautionary tales about desire, romance, deception, and dread Elle Nors has found her own space away from Copenhagen's literati... Her words whip along, each idea cascading into the next: it's like having a window into someone's thoughts and makes for a stimulating... read Independent Unpredictable, poetic and powerful, with comedy, hope and surrealism alongside mental illness, violence and tragedy Curious Animal Magazine (On Karate Chop:) 'Spare, poetic, ominously disturbing' (On Minna Needs Rehearsal Space:) 'A playful experiment in finding mood and meaning in the staccato prose of the newspaper headline or social media status update' Bookanista Gripping... how often can we honestly say that a book is unlike anything else? Yet here it is, unique in form and effect... Nors has found a novel way of getting into the human heart... even the author blurb is exciting: it tells us that as well as this novella and collection of stories, Nors has written four novels not yet translated into English. Oh! Don't make us wait -- John Self Guardian One of Denmark's most inventive and acclaimed contemporary writer Bookanista An attractive format... shows us more than one side to Nors's work. Short, sharp stories... oblique and precise... Very striking David Hebblethwaite's Blog In this beautifully packaged back-to-back collection, Pushkin Press presents a stunningly original new voice from Denmark... Dorthe Nors has the fabulous talent (...) of restraint... The stories (...) will stay with readers far beyond the page... A major new voice in European literature Booktrust [A] unique book... a fresh, brave voice... Nors creates an incredibly direct and forceful short story. Stick with her, it's worth it We Love This Book Darkly funny and incisive... In these literary body-blows, Nors takes merciless aim at families, relationships and egos FT Nors is the Danish doyenne of the genre... [She] presents a hauntingly familiar world, which presents unpredicted turns that are at once astoundingly disturbing and curiously beautiful The Lady Nors has a great knack... for portraying the voids and fault lines in an unbalanced mind... crisp, quirky, jarringly funny TLS Beautiful, moving, totally compelling account of one woman's yearning Nick Barley, director Edinburgh International Book Festival Dorthe Nors's story collection, Karate Chop, also blew me away. Published by Pushkin Press in an attractive back-to-back edition (the innovative novella Minna Needs Rehearsal Space is on the flipside) these are some of the best five-page stories I've ever read. -- Thomas Morris Irish Times Dorthe Nors's novella Minna Needs Rehearsal Space... set off fireworks in my brain: it's story told in one- or two-sentence headlines. I loved the way that the mostly one-line paragraphs marched down the page in prickly self-containment, with a lot of white space that demands a certain kind of attention from the reader The New Yorker
Author Bio
Dorthe Nors was born in 1970 and studied literature and art history at the University of Aarhus. After publishing three novels, she wrote Karate Chop, her collection of short stories, in 2008 and Minna needs rehearsal space in 2013. She has seen her short stories in various publications, including The Boston Review, Harpers and The New Yorker, and has contributed to anthologies in Denmark and Germany. Having international acclaim, she lives in rural Jutland, Denmark.