Tollak, Who Belongs to Ingeborg

Tollak is living out his last days on a homestead by a rusting sawmill that has fed him for almost his entire life. His wildly beloved wife, Ingeborg, disappeared twenty years ago. Of the children nearby, there is almost no one: his son only occasionally drops by to see his father, while his daughter went to the capital and has not appeared since. And only Oddo, a simpleton Tollak took from his mother when he was still a child—after she refused him—has been fussing in the shed with a net for who knows how long.

Tollak is a man of strong passions and sudden, decisive actions: he harshly judges the new order of things, easily excuses his own drunkenness, and desperately tries to come to terms with his past. But today all his children will gather under one roof—because Ingeborg asked Tollak, before dying, to speak with them plainly.

Ture Renberg is known to Russian readers for the novels “You’re So Bright” and “Charlotte Isabelle Hansen,” based on which the film “I Fly Alone” was made. The novel “Tollak, Who Belonged to Ingeborgi” won all the major national awards and has been translated into almost two dozen languages.