Adult Book of the Month

A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett. Published by Vintage in 2013.

A Death in the Family is a painfully honest account of Norwegian writer Knausgaard’s life and his struggle to become a writer. He writes about his childhood and teenage years, his difficult father and his own children with painful honesty and meticulous detail. He makes the ordinary and mundane events of his life completely mesmerising and is not afraid to expose his own faults and anxieties.

A Death in the Family is the first part of a six volume work, the first four of which are now available in English.

"A masterpiece... Meticulously detailed, harrowing, oddly beautiful, its depiction of a family’s disintegration is one of the most powerful pieces of writing I’ve read in years"
Observer, Books of the Year

"Incredibly moving" Irish Times, Books of the Year

"A Death in the Family bowled me over….The slow pace of disclosure makes this account of a Norwegian adolescence pulse with intensity.” Irish Independent

By the same author
A Man in Love: My Struggle Book 2
Boyhood Island: My Struggle Book 3
Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4
A Time for Everything