Urwind

By Bo Carpelan

The novel comprises fifty-three leers from Daniel Urwind, an aging bookseller, to his wife, who has left him for an indeterminate spell of greater freedom and study in the United States. The wife’s absence haunts the leers, which are often tales of Daniel’s daily rituals. Daniel’s narration of mundanities approaches magical realism; memories of his wife, fantasies, bad dreams, monologues, and dialogues with the living and the dead coalesce in a complex layering of experience, past and present. Urwind is a construct worthy of Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, and a pain l chronicle of the ending of a love.

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About the author

Bo Carpelan (1926-2011) created outstanding literary works throughout his sixty-five year long career. He was the first author to receive the Finlandia Fiction Prize twice. He was also granted the Nordic Council Literary Prize, the Finnish State Prize for Literature four times, and Carpelan also received Le Prix Européen for his poetry.Bo Carpelan’s works are distinguished by reliving of a moment from the past and also by a love for direct, close human contact. His poetry and prose have been published in translation in 17 languages. All his works were originally written in Swedish.