The Pastor

Product Description
A major work of contemporary fiction from a “leading light of international literature” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Hanne Ørstavik, whose last novel, Love, won the PEN Translation Prize.\nA thought-provoking, existential novel – as Liv searches for meaning and identity in her own life, she must find the words to connect, comfort and lead others.\nLiv, an intense and reticent theologian, moves to a bitterly cold fishing village to take up a post as the church’s new pastor following the death of her friend, Kristiane. In the upper rooms of a large house overlooking the fjord, Liv plans her sermons and studies the violent interplay of Norway’s Christian colonial past. She trails downstairs into the apartment below for dinners and breakfasts with a widow and her two children. As Liv becomes acquainted with the villagers and their own private tragedies, memories bloom in passages that urgently question the unpredictable bedrock of language, and the peculiar channels of imagined experience as it might have been, if only there had been a different set of words, or an outstretched hand.\nThe past mingles darkly with the present, cascading in chilling images: a dog lying dead in the snowy plains, Kristiane’s teeth flashing as she laughs, a procession of singing, knife-carrying protesters curving along a river’s edge. Martin Aitken’s translation of this extraordinary novel rings with the brilliance and rigor of a master.
Review
"A less profound writer than Ørstavik may have opted for a more commercial storyline, one in which the wise townspeople gently educate their bumptious young preacher about their quirky ways. Instead, like Alice McDermott, another author who doesn’t shy away from the spiritual, Ørstavik drives Liv into the realization of her own failure: She hasn’t come to Norway’s far reaches to minister to others; she’s come to escape . . .
The Pastor is a quietly radical book."\n– Patricia Schultheis,
Washington Independent Review of Books\n"In Ørstavik’s deeply thoughtful and captivating latest (after
Love), a woman spends a year in Kjøllefjord, Norway, as an assistant pastor . . . The various threads shuffle seamlessly in Liv's head and build to a heartbreaking crescendo, filled in with brilliant descriptions of the flat landscape (a church above the fjord sits “brilliantly white... on a dish of darkness”). Ørstavik distinguishes herself as a leading light in international literature. "
—Publishers Weekly, starred review\n"Ørstavik’s slow-burning narrative crescendoes as a potent feminist anthem."
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Publishers Weekly, Best Books of 2021\n"[A] beautiful and haunting gem . . . A quiet, resonant novel in which a young female pastor narrates the story of her self-exile to a sparse outpost in the far North and her relationships with the village locals—a rough, hardworking bunch who hide their vulnerabilities . . .
The Pastor is the fascinating story of a woman in a strange setting who continually probes the vital question of how to live a meaningful life."
– Lori Feathers,
Literary Hub\n"The desolate beauty of a Nordic winter mirrors the interior landscape of a troubled priest in
The Pastor, a mesmerizing study of spiritual unease . . . With writerly grace and moral seriousness . . .
The Pastor summons a sweep of images and questions bound to linger."
– Theo Henderson,
Shelf Awareness, starred review\n"One of the many things addressed [in
The Pastor] is the power of words, as Liv’s area of study was concerning an incident in Scandinavian history where varying translations of the Bible led to violence towards the Sámis . . . I loved Ørstavik’s writing style; it was almost hypnotic, and very comforting . . . Once the reader is sucked in, it is very hard to break away."
– Tracey Ann Thompson,
California Reading"The unreliability of language may be a motif here, but Ørstavik is in full control — and Martin Aitken, his hand steady on the throttle, discerns her intentions with an acute