Unavailable in English: The Death of Orvar Klein

The Death of Orvar Klein

by Daniel Katz
Werner Söderström Publishing, 1976

Daniel Katz is one of Finland’s most beloved comic novelists. He has twice won the Finnish State Prize for Literature and in 2015 was awarded the Pro-Finlandia Medal for his contributions to Finnish letters. Although his works have been translated into German, French and a dozen other languages, Daniel Katz is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world.

The Death of Orvar Klein, Katz’s brilliant third novel, is the story of a bookish young man growing up in Finland at the turn of the twentieth century and the numerous baptisms both metaphorical and literal that he stumbles into or is forced to undergo by the overwhelming Christian majority around him. A true man of the book, Orvar Klein turns to literature for everything he needs to know, whether it’s how to swim or how to win a fistfight, but the world keeps intruding on his reading. With his life buffeted by the maddening absurdities of arbitrary authority, exiled and driven near madness by the mad system he is caught up in, Orvar is heroically resilient. He remains himself to the end, even when his very name is taken from him.

*

Lola Rogers has translated The Death of Orvar Klein through an NEA Translation Fellowship and is seeking a publisher.

More information and full English manuscript available upon request through the FELT contact page.

Mr. Katz is represented by Bonnier Rights Finland.