Mirror, Shoulder, Signal

Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017 Sonja thinks about the dead prime ministers in the cemetery. It’s lovely to take a blanket there. Then she can lie on it, looking at Hans Hedtoft while the ducks quack and the roof of the big chapel gleams in the sun… The dead make no noise, and if she’s lucky a bird of prey might soar overhead. Then she’ll lie there, and escape. Sonja's over forty, and she's trying to move in the right direction. She's learning to drive. She's joined a meditation group. And she's attempting to reconnect with her sister. But Sonja would rather eat cake than meditate. Her driving instructor won't let her change gear. And her sister won't return her calls. Sonja's mind keeps wandering back to the dramatic landscapes of her childhood - the singing whooper swans, the endless sky, and getting lost barefoot in the rye fields - but how can she return to a place that she no longer recognises? And how can she escape the alienating streets of Copenhagen? Mirror, Shoulder, Signal is a poignant, sharp-witted tale of one woman's journey in search of herself when there's no one to ask for directions. Dorthe Nors is an enormous literary star in her native Denmark and Mirror Shoulder Signal may yet stand as her breakout work in the UK. ‘This 200-page lamentation on contemporary loneliness would quickly grate if it were not for the benevolent ingenuity of Nors’s writing.’ – The Guardian 'Dorthe Nors is fantastic!' - Junot Diaz 'Nors' writing is by turns witty, gut wrenching, stark and lyrical.' - Los Angeles Times The Man Booker International Judges comment: ‘Mirror, Shoulder, Signal is an astonishingly assured portrait of one woman’s mixture of wonder and self-doubt. Thanks to Misha Hoekstra’s polished translation, it celebrates the extraordinary in Sonja’s ordinary existence and reveals deeply-felt emotions just beneath the surface of everyday situations.’ Dorthe Nors was born in 1970 in Denmark. She is one of the most original voices in contemporary Danish literature. Her short stories have appeared in numerous international periodicals, including the Boston Review and Harper’s, and she is the first Danish writer ever to have a story published in the New Yorker. Nors has published four novels, in addition to a collection of stories, Karate Chop, and a novella, Minna Needs Rehearsal Space, which were published together in English  by Pushkin Press. Karate Chop won the prestigious P. O. Enquist Literary Prize in 2014. She lives in rural Jutland, Denmark. Misha Hoekstra, born in the US in 1963, has won several awards for his literary translations. He lives in Aarhus, where he works as a freelance writer and translator.