Author:J. O. Morgan
**WINNER OF THE COSTA POETRY AWARD 2018**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION**
A war-poem both historic and frighteningly topical, Assurances begins in the 1950s during a period of vigilance and dread in the middle of the Cold War: the long stand-off between nuclear powers, where the only defence was the threat of mutually assured destruction.
Using a mix of versed and unversed passages, Morgan places moments of calm reflection alongside the tensions inherent in guarding against such a permanent threat. A work of variations and possibilities, we hear the thoughts of those involved who are trying to understand and justify their roles. We examine the lives of civilians who are not aware of the impending danger, as well as those who are. We listen to the whirring minds of machines; to the voice of the bomb itself. We spy on enemy agents: always there, always somewhere close at hand.
Assurances is an intimate, dramatic work for many voices: lyrical, anxious, fragmentary and terrifying; a poem about the nuclear stalemate, the deterrent that is still in place today: how it works and how it might fail, and what will vanish if it does.
I seriously doubt I will read a more significant book of poetry this year. The finale is truly affecting, a plangent and profound speck of light.
—— Stuart Kelly , Scotsman[JO Morgan's] remarkable new book Assurances [is] a gripping narrative poem.
—— Tristram Fane Saunders , TelegraphSolstad is expert in delineating the absurdities of existence… Solstad exposes us to ourselves.
—— David Mills , Sunday TimesHe’s a kind of surrealistic writer... I think that’s serious literature.
—— Haruki MurakamiHis language sparkles with its new old-fashioned elegance.
—— Karl Ove KnausgaardHe doesn’t write to please other people... Do exactly what you want, that’s my idea… the drama exists in his voice, in his comments and views, and that works, it helps connect the reader to the story.
—— Lydia DavisSolstad's novels are full of dryly comic, densely existential despair . . . reminiscent of Witold Gombrowicz, with his keen sense of the absurd. Both translators Tiina Nunnally and Steven T. Murray have rendered Solstad's rhythms into wonderfully idiosyncratic English.
—— Nathan Kapp , Times Literary Supplement[Solstad] is a wonderful stylist whose prose gives the impression of not being stylised at all… The prose is distracted and persistent, compelling and compelled.
—— Frank Lawton , Literary ReviewBefore Knausgaard, Norway had Solstad, whose pitiless, mesmeric, darkly comic stories of quiet desperation – here it’s a failed librarian – turn banality to sublimity.
—— The Arts DeskAn idiosyncratic, at times impish writer, whose voice – insinuating yet direct, droll but aghast – is impossible to ‘unhear’ once you’ve encountered it.
—— The White ReviewIn Norway, Solstad is as celebrated as, say, Don DeLillo or Toni Morrison [in the US]... An utterly hypnotic and utterly humane writer.
—— James WoodWithout question Norway's bravest, most intelligent novelist.
—— Per PettersonSolstad is a writer of depth.
—— Peter HandkeSince he published his first book of stories in 1965, Dag Solstad has been to Scandinavian literature what Philip Roth has been to American letters or Günter Grass to German writing: an unavoidable voice.
—— Paris ReviewSolstad’s unusual, entertaining novel of restrained humor follows its protagonist, T Singer, over a lifetime of nonengagement... [it] brilliantly shows the humor and pain of obsessiveness, and the anxious, analytic Singer emerges as an enduring creation.
—— Publishers Weekly
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
