Nominated for the Nordic Council’s Award 2008
Nominated for the Norwegian Critics’ Prize 2007

Since her debut in 1983, Merethe Lindstrom has had many critically acclaimed novels and short story collections published. In The Guests she returns with short stories that with carefulness and strength portray encounters between people. Determining moments that make the characters see themselves and others in a new light. A woman relives her first kiss, another person finds a lost love. A mother has to give away a daughter and meet her several years later, a father welcomes a son who has recently served a sentence in prison. Some encounters lead to the acknowledgement that what one thought was closeness, is distance – or the feeling of being a guest in one’s own life and that of others. 

Merethe Lindstrøm creates a strong depiction of characters and intense moments with literary security. The special strength of the stories lies in the tension between the subtle way of expression and the violent anxiety the subtext represents.