Nothing in Elias' measured life, in his whole career as a teacher of literature, in his marriage to the 'indescribably beautiful' Eva, foreshadowed the events of that apparently ordinary day. He makes sure he has his headache pills and leaves for work as he has done every morning for the past twenty-five years. He is only too familiar with his pupils' hostile attitude both to his lectures and to himself, but today he feels their impatience, their oafishness, more painfully than ever before and, after their ritually dismissive and bored response to his passionate lecture on Ibsen's The Wild Duck, he reaches a point of crisis. Elegant, pocket-sized paperbacks, VINTAGE Editions celebrate the audacity and ambition of the written word, transporting readers to wherever in the world literary innovation may be found.

WINNER OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY'S NORDIC PRIZE 2017 'He's a kind of surrealistic writer... I think that's serious literature' Haruki Murakami 'An utterly hypnotic and utterly humane writer' James Wood 'Without question Norway's bravest, most intelligent novelist' Per Petterson 'Dag Solstad serves up another helping of his wan and wise almost-comedy' Geoff Dyer 'He doesn't write to please other people. Do exactly what you want, that's my idea...the drama exists in his voice' Lydia Davis Bjorn Hansen, a respectable town treasurer, has just turned fifty and is horrified by the thought that chance has ruled his life. Eighteen years ago he left his wife and their two-year-old son for his mistress, who persuaded him to start afresh in a small, provincial town and to dabble in amateur dramatics. But as time passes, this relationship begins to wilt and die as well. After four years of living comfortably alone, Bjorn starts entertaining a dangerous course of action that will change his life beyond recognition. This urge to gamble with his comfortable existence becomes irresistible, taking Bjorn to Vilnius, Lithuania, with Dr Schiotz his fellow conspirator, where he cannot tell whether he's tangled up in a game or an absurd new reality.

It is Christmas Eve, and 55-year-old Professor Pal Andersen is alone, drinking coffee and cognac in his living room. Lost in thought, he looks out of the window and sees a man strangle a woman in the apartment across the street. Professor Andersen fails to report the crime. The days pass, and he becomes paralysed by indecision. Desperate for respite, the professor sets off to a local sushi bar, only to find himself face to face with the murderer. Professor Andersen's Night is an unsettling yet highly entertaining novel of apathy, rebellion and morality. In flinty prose, Solstad presents an uncomfortable question: would we, like his cerebral protagonist, do nothing?

'Solstad doesn't write to please other people. Do exactly what you want, that's my idea...the drama exists in his voice' Lydia Davis Armand is a diplomat rising through the ranks of the Norwegian foreign office, but he's caught between his public duty to support foreign wars in the Middle East and his private disdain of Western intervention. He hides behind his knowing ironic statements about the war, which no one grasps and which change nothing in the real world. Armand's son joins the Norwegian SAS to fight in the Middle East, despite being specifically warned against such a move by his father, which leads to catastrophic, heartbreaking consequences. Told exclusively in footnotes to an unwritten novel, this is Solstad's radically unconventional novel about how we experience the passing of time: how it fragments, drifts, quickens, and how single moments can define a life. Winner of the Brage Prize