Norwegian novelist Vigdis Hjorth’s new book “Repetition”
One great pleasure in reading “Repetition” (Verso Fiction), Norwegian novelist Vigdis Hjorth’s new book, is how a single paragraph or, in some cases, a single sentence or phrase, contains multitudes.
Take for instance, this: “Hope is like a new garment—stiff, tight and glittering—but until you try it on, you won’t know if it fits or suits you, while memory is like an old garment: no matter how pretty it is, it no longer suits you, you’ve outgrown it. Repetition, however, is like a durable garment that hugs you tenderly, but never constricts or swamps you.” Coming on pages four and five of the slim 144-page volume, the ideas are accompanied by the protagonist’s declaration that “repetition is the whole point of life.” Packed into two sentences and the fragmentary seven-word clause is enough energy to cause a full stop or extended, contemplative pause before reading on.
Hjorth’s Repetition is the story of a novelist who habitually retreats to a remote cabin in the Norwegian woods after each extended period of participation in literary festivals and other events. This time, breaking her solitary confinement to attend a friend’s concert, she encounters a family of three. Mother and father have clearly imposed their will on the teenage daughter who sulks and suffocates under her parents’ dictatorial impositions. They exploit her time, pick at her jacket, hush her independence, stifle her very being. Straightjacketed by their refusal to recognize her desire, refusing to see her pain and their own part as actors in it, the young girl weeps quietly and succumbs, because, what other choice is there?
The sight of this unhappy trio pitches the novelist back in time. In 1975, at age 16, she experienced a similar tundra of superimposed parental impositions that collided with an otherwise thrilling year of many firsts—first drunken spree, first sex with a boy, first awareness her mother’s constant anxiety had taken up residency in her mind and body. She recalls how the pressure grew like a toxic virus and formed into self-loathing, doubt, and anger. The velocity of a teenager’s emotional mindset meant she was destined to explode, because, what other choice was there?
Forty-eight years later, filtered through an older perspective, she revisits the memories, mysteries and maladaptive efforts of her younger self. Memories of events long-buried and words unspoken rise in fits and starts, always remaining just under the surface, but seething and boiling, nonetheless.
As is true of Hjorth’s other books, trauma rarely thrusts itself into direct visibility. Hjorth trusts the reader to know the truth buried in the fiction without putting it on display. If she chose to write more obtusely, having her characters speak without veils, it would be like a synchronized swimmer’s leg spitting a watery surface, all glistening and moist. It might be exciting but, in this metaphor, the leg would be grotesquely scarred and lose its allure. Better—more potent—to allow readers to form images of horrors.
Hjorth is the author of numerous best-selling books, including “Long Live the Post Horn” and “Will and Testament.” The latter sparked a Norwegian tabloid drama after its release in 2016. Hjorth’s family protested, claiming they were used without permission and unfairly represented in the story. Helga, one of Hjorth’s sisters, wrote a revenge book of her own. The ensuing public tumult was extended and the drama over the book’s publication threatened to overshadow its content. First published in Norway in 2016, Will and Testament was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. Her novel, “Is Mother Dead,” was longlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize. “Repetition” (Gjentakelsen) was published in March 2026 and translated to English by Charlotte Barslund.
In an email interview, Hjorth is practically, saying she trusts Barslund as a translator because her publisher trusts her. “I have no reason not to trust in her,” she adds. “If I should try to control my translators, I would not have the time to write!”
When weighing the balance between directness, detail, suggestion, and obscurity when writing of the inner world of a character, Hjorth follows instinct. The pacing when opening a character’s outer shell is less analytical, more about taking a risk. “I rely only on my instinct. And, I have to add, the melody of the (Norwegian) language.”
This seems especially true in characters’ dreams that are a frequent writing device used in her books. “My characters’ dreams are nightly gifts to them as my own dreams are nightly gifts to me. They help me to understand myself, my often stupid decisions, my feelings of sorrow even though I do not have a reason to be sad. Dreams help me to understand what I unconsciously want or need. I am so grateful for my dreams, even though (or because) they often show me how stupid or evil I am.”
It is another intriguing opening, but resisting the urge to pursue Hjorth’s propensity for evil, the conversation turns back to the melody of her native language. She says talented writing in any language is linked to acute listening. The ways people phrase ideas, their choice of words, and the emotionality they express add up to a human song. When listening to animals and trees, she says her ear is attuned to the melodic nature of sound without words.
Asked about her character’s belief that “fiction can have a greater impact than the truth, and be more truthful,” she says she considers the idea essential. “I experienced that as a very young girl, (10-11 years) and I experience this every time I read a good novel or a good poem, or a good sentence. As an example, this sentence written by Bertolt Brecht: ‘What is worse: Owning a bank or robbing a bank.’”
With truth and fiction thus tethered to each other, Hjorth speaks to the reality of feeling inaccurately viewed or not seen at all, invisible. Experienced during childhood and as a teen, the moments crystalize into memories that in the future will last and be retold, reshaped, and repeated. She tells a real life story to illustrate the point. “When I was ten, I was fiercely, helplessly and hopelessly in love with a new boy at school. I couldn’t confine these intense feelings, for I intuitively understood that they wouldn’t be understood. I felt very alone with this turbulence in my chest. This is generally how I have felt ever since, whether the emotions concern love, literature or politics.”
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