Ice Palace 2009

This hauntingly beautiful novel deals in utmost simplicity of language and narrative with the paramount themes of most great literature: love, death, and the maturing of the individual. Two eleven-year-old girls, Siss and Unn, are separated at the very beginning of their friendship by the death of the latter in a strange, labyrinthine palace of ice. This book was also made into an award-winning Norwegian film. Tarjei Vesaas is generally regarded as one of the most important Norwegian authors since Knut Hamsun. Several times nominated and selected as one of the finalists for the Nobel Prize, Veassa was awarded the prestigious Venice Prize in 1952 and the Nordic Council's Literature Prize for "The Ice Palace" in 1963.

Tarjei Vesaas was the author of several novels, volumes of poetry, and a book of short stories which was awarded an international prize at Venice in 1952. He was awarded several other prizes, and was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in 1964, 1968, and again in 1969.