Present Tense Machine: A Novel

Gunnhild Øyehaug

yan, 2022 · Sotuvchi: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Bu e-kitob haqida

“An ingenious pocket universe.” —Caitlin Horrocks, The New York Times Book Review
"Gunnhild Øyehaug is a magician of the highest rank."—Catherine Lacey

On an ordinary day in Bergen, Norway, in the late 1990s, Anna is reading in the garden while her two-year-old daughter, Laura, plays on her tricycle. Then, in one startling moment, Anna misreads a word, an alternate universe opens up, and Laura disappears. Twenty years or so later, life has gone on as if nothing happened, but in each of the women’s lives, something is not quite right.

Both Anna and Laura continue to exist, but they are invisible to each other and forgotten in each other’s worlds. Both are writers and amateur pianists. They are married; Anna had two more children after Laura disappeared, and Laura is expecting a child of her own. They worry about their families, their jobs, the climate—and whether this reality is all there is.

Muallif haqida

Gunnhild Øyehaug is an award-winning Norwegian poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her story collection Knots was published by FSG in 2017, followed in 2018 by Wait, Blink, which was adapted into the acclaimed film Women in Oversized Men’s Shirts, and in 2022 by Present Tense Machine. Øyehaug lives in Bergen, where she teaches creative writing.

Kari Dickson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and grew up bilingual. She has a BA in Scandinavian studies and an MA in translation. Her translation of Brown by Håkon Øvreås and Øyvind Torseter won the 2020 Mildred L. Batchelder Award. Before becoming a translator, she worked in theater in London and Oslo. She teaches in the Scandinavian studies department at the University of Edinburgh.