About the author:

Tarjei Vesaas was a Norwegian poet and novelist. Visaas is widely considered to be one of Norway’s greatest writers of the twentieth century and perhaps its most important since World War II.

His authorship covers almost 50 years, from 1923 to 1970. Written in Nynorsk, his work is characterized by simple, terse, and symbolic prose. His stories are often about simple rural people that undergo a severe psychological drama and who according to critics are described with immense psychological insight.

David M. Smith joined U.W Madison as a graduate student in the department of German, Nordic and Slavic Students in 2020. His main interests are Nynorsk literature, the Norwegian Maoist movement of the 60s-80s, and translation. He is currently working on two- book-.length translation projects: a collection of short stories by Tarjei Vesaas and a novel by Johan Harstad