Nominated for the Sørlandet Literature Prize

After a holiday with their families in Italy, Judith and Hulda resume the friendship they had when they were young. Shortly after, Hulda travels to England for an artist-in-residence program, but she does not return as planned. Judith is convinced that Hulda has chosen to disappear – to her it confirms Hulda’s pattern of making radical changes in her life. Eleven days later, Hulda reappears, refusing to say where she has been or what she has been doing. Instead she asks Judith to take care of her son for the last semester at high school, claiming that mother and son need a break from each other.

A Sudden Darkness is a gentle, tender novel about longing to be seen and longing to disappear, about the joy of meeting someone and the sadness of never really being known. It’s not so much the desire not to be found that makes us disappear as it is the longing to be stronger.