This novel won The Independent’s Foreign Fiction Prize earlier this year. Per Petterson is Norweigian (well – it’s a while since my last Scanidnavian title), and is very well regarded in his homeland. Out Stealing Horses is a wonderful novel telling the story of Trond, both as a child in 1948, just after the war was over and the occupation finished, and as an older man living in a cabin in rural Norway with the Millennium approaching.
The novel is nicely placed and the characters and events feel very real and not at all contrived. Something happens in Trond’s childhood which is change things forever and how he sees the world around him.
I loved the descriptions of life in the country realistically portrayed through a young teenager’s eyes as things are slowly revealed to him. Well worth a read.