White Shadow

The highly anticipated sequel to International Booker and Dublin Impac Award-shortlisted The Unseen No-one can be alone on an island . . . But Ingrid is alone on Barrøy, the island that bears her name, and the war of her childhood has been replaced by a new, more terrible present: the Nazi occupation of Norway. When the bodies from a bombed vessel carrying Russian prisoners of war begin to wash up on the shore, Ingrid can't know that one will not only be alive, but could be the answer to a lifetime of loneliness--nor can she imagine what suffering she will endure in hiding her lover from the German authorities, or the journey she will face, after being wrenched from her island as consequence for protecting him, to return home. Or especially that, surrounded by the horrors of battle, among refugees fleeing famine and scorched earth, she will receive a gift, the value of which is beyond measure. The highly anticipated follow-up to Roy Jacobsen's International Booker and Dublin Impac Award-shortlisted The Unseen, a New York Times New and Noteworthy book, White Shadow is a vividly observed exploration of conflict, love, and human endurance.

Praise for White Shadow "White Shadow retains many of The Unseen's pleasures, not least Jacobsen's clean, spare prose . . . a noble tribute to the human struggle for decency."--Daniel Marc Janes, Times Literary Supplement "An unsentimental story that combines the cosmic with bracing emotional austerity."--Claire Allfree, Daily Mail "Disarmingly plainspoken narration brings into sharp relief both individuals and a world in wartime crisis."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "A powerful read."--David Mills, Sunday Times Praise for The Unseen "Even by his high standards, his magnificent new novel The Unseen is Jacobsen's finest to date, as blunt as it is subtle and is easily among the best books I have ever read."--Irish Times "A beautifully crafted novel . . . Quite simply a brilliant piece of work . . . Rendered beautifully into English by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, The Unseen is a towering achievement that would be a deserved Booker International winner."--New European "A profound interrogation of freedom and fate, as well as a fascinating portrait of a vanished time, written in prose as clear and washed clean as the world after a storm."--The Guardian "The subtle translation, with its invented dialect, conveys a timeless, provincial voice . . . The Unseen is a blunt, brilliant book."--Financial Times

Roy Jacobsen is a Norwegian novelist and short-story writer. Born in Oslo, he made his publishing debut in 1982 with the short-story collection Fangeliv (Prison Life), which won Tarjei Vesaas' debutantpris. He is winner of the prestigious Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and two of his novels have been nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize: Seierherrene (The Conquerors) in 1991 and Frost in 2004. The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles was published in Britain in 2008. Jacobsen lives in Oslo.