a really interesting take on the difference between what ordinary people belive the Empire to be and its reality

an epic tale of battle, intrigue and treachery...a conflict to stir the soul and excite the senses, to open up the ultimate path to adventure and offer new visitors on an eternal struggle

Dag Solstad, Norway's most distinguished living writer, is a clear-eyed moralist who takes an existentialist's interest in the compromises, evasions and accommodations we make to get through life... Wryly humorous and needle-sharp in skewering pretension, Solstad is unlike anyone currently writing in English... A deeply rewarding novel

[An] exquisitely composed novel... Dag Solstad is an unflinching explorer of the plight of educated humankind in the face of the inexplicable whose artistry matches his ambitious theme

At times dark and moving, even, on occasion, unexpectedly funny, Professor Andersen's Night tackles a premise which would prove just as intriguing in a pacey thriller... It is visceral in its investigations into the derailing of one man's life in all its sticky, existential glory

This is a subversive little novel in which morality becomes a football. Whereas Novel 11, Book 18 pivots on a decision that defies everything, Professor Andersen's Night confronts morality, justice and compromise. Dag Solstad, who is frequently compared, with some justification, to Chekhov, has written a moral, almost allegorical novel in which he is far less interested in heroics than he is in humanity

A clever psychological inaction thriller, which uses the witnessing of a crime as the catalyst for a midlife crisis

Four stars- fascinating

Solstad has an outstanding ability to portray mental processes accurately; here, the bleakness of Andersen's outlook is offset by the lightness of the prose, nimbly translated by Agnes Scott Langeland, and by the wry at humour at play in it

A penetrating combination of Hitchcock's Rear Window, Camus' existential ennui and Larkin's social embarrassment

At times dark and moving, even on occasion, unexpectedly funny...It is visceral in its investigations into the derailing of one mans life in all its sticky, existential glory.The book’s icy prose and long sentences – which in the wrong hands would feel heavy and laboured – flow with a quickness that hints at the workings of Andersen’s mind, and Solstad has a way of producing at the protagonists bourgeois anxieties desperately sorry for him

Solstad, Norway’s most distinguished living writer, is a clear-eyed moralist who takes an existentialist’s interest in the compromises, evasions and accommodations we make to get though life. Wryly humorous and needle-sharp in skewering pretension, Solstad is unlike anyone currently writing in English

Forget the Scandi crime production line and turn to this sly thriller

A wry moral tale exploring the little evasions and compromises of everyday life. Translator Agnes Scott does justice to Solstad’s measured voice

This short-but-striking novel quickly reveals itself to be…crime fiction, yes, but also a subtle and deeply introspective consideration of the inertia of lonely middle-age, its philosophy existentialist in the manner of Jean Paul Sartre, Ingmar Bergman and certain novels of Georges Simenon. The result is a highly complex and accomplished work

Intriguing tale… Solstad expertly navigates the bizarre mind of a clever but lonely man locked in an existentialist nightmare

This is no straightforward crime novel…an exploration of guilt, inaction and moral quandaries