Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

The Invisible (excerpts)

Roy Jacobsen

Roy Jacobsen (b. Oslo, 1954) is a novelist and short-story writer.

This novel, De Usynlige , is a #1 bestseller in Norway. It is the story of Ingrid Barrøy and her family living on a small island on the North- Western coast of Norway, in the first

half of the 20th Century, when Norway consisted mostly of farmers, some of them extremely poor. The family lives off of their meagre land, they have livestock, they fish in the sea and use whatever the waves wash ashore. A life somewhere else is unthinkable for them – this is their paradise on Earth.

De Usynlige is based on a true story, inspired by people Jacobsen knew in childhood.

Translated from Norwegian by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw.

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