Jonas often took out The Tree of Love and ran a finger over his name printed on that page, as if he could not believe it was true. When everything was over, all that would be left of him would be this little dedication in a romantic novel. People would always wonder who ‘Jonas W.’ was — some people would even take the trouble to find out. He, Jonas Wergeland, who had held a whole nation in the palm of his hand, who had once ranked second only to the king, would wind up as a footnote, so to speak, in a love story. What a paradox. All his travails with television — only to be remembered because of a book.
The first time Jonas opened The Tree of Love, in prison, and saw those letters on the expanse of white at the very front of the novel, he found it hard to read what they said. The letters seemed to him to be shining, his name seemed to be shining. He sat with the book in his hands and knew that he had made the greatest discovery of his life, a discovery which redefined everything, truly expanded him, made him a new person.
So far I have not understood a thing, he thought. I need to go back to the very beginning.
About the Author
JAN KJÆRSTAD is one of Norway’s most acclaimed writers. His trilogy The Seducer, The Conqueror and The Discoverer (Arcadia) has achieved huge international success and won him the prestigious Nordic Council Prize, Scandinavia’s highest literary honour.
BARBARA J. HAVELAND has translated works by several leading Danish and Norwegian authors incuding Peter Høeg, Linn Ullmann and Leif Davidsen.