Home | Books By Year | Books from 1983
Rosapenna
Buy Rosapenna now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the book. And once you've experienced the book, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Rosapenna' is a novel published in 1983 by the Norwegian writer Ola Bauer. The book introduced Belfast and Northern Ireland into Norwegian literature.
Context
The novel is the fourth in a series about the character "Jo Vendt". The first book, Bauer's debut novel 'Graffiti' published in 1976 under the pseudonym Jo Vendt, describes the principal character's tough childhood as a dropout sent to schools for maladjusted children. The next novel, 'Bulk' (1978), describes "Jo"
as a sailor with a background from a debauched life in Oslo. 'Humlehjertene' from 1980 is about the anarchist "Jo Vendt" who travels to Paris in 1968, falls in love with a Finnish girl, and ends up on the barricades with paving stones in his hands.
Plot
The focus in 'Rosapenna' is the conflict in Northern Ireland, which "Jo Vendt" is covering as a journalist. Other central characters in the novel are the English soldier "Sammy Jenkins", who has a background as a poor boy from Whitechapel, and the poor IRA girl "Brigid Doherty". The novel is set in 1973. "Vendt" has been instructed to cover the conflict from a pro British point of view, and is prepared to satisfy the editor in this respect, and to write about James Joyce and Brendan Behan from the cultural side. He eventually gets in contact with IRA people in Ardoyne, an Irish Nationalist district of North Belfast, and move in with a family in the ghetto 'The Bone'. From then on he is on a collision course with his newspaper editor. He becomes disgusted with the misrepresented reports delivered by the journalist corps, and tries to understand the underlying reasons for the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Rosapenna Street is a genuine street in the Bone area of Belfast, adjacent to Ardoyne.[http://homepage.tinet.ie/~eirenua/2000/sep00/saoirse2.htm Street censorship serves only British interests]
Play version
An episode from 'Rosapenna' was adapted into the audio play 'Vesper', produced for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation theatre Radioteatret and printed in 1987.
References
Category:20th-century Norwegian novels
Category:1983 novels
Category:Fiction set in 1973
Category:Novels set in Northern Ireland
Category:Novels about journalists
Buy Rosapenna now from Amazon
<-- Return to books from 1983