Greenland (Denmark) / All works
Novel
Tarrarsuumi tarraq
Not translated into English
Ole Korneliussen · 1999
Synopsis
The Pillar of Salt: on a day he has chosen himself, the hero crosses Copenhagen towards an unknown destination and looks at the people he passes with a misanthropic eye, judging their existence empty. The novel returns to the theme of suicide, which the author had already treated, and draws on existentialist thought about solitude, alienation and free choice. Den Store Danske, the only source to describe it, says no more.
Context
Published in 1999, the novel was translated into Danish in 2000 under the title Saltstøtten. It continues, according to Den Store Danske, a body of work that had already taken up the suicide of young Greenlanders, which became a growing problem in the 1970s, with Seqinnersumi apisoq in 1990, and which broke with the prose of its time through an experimental form. The story collection Uumasoqat, from 1992, was translated into Dutch under the title Qivittoq.
Who it is for
A novel of solitude and alienation, readable in Danish; no French or English translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
Den Store Danske sees in it the return of a rebellious author to his major theme, nourished by existentialism.