The Princes of Pauper's Pond : The NORWEGIAN SENSATION... based on a true story...

In 1912, two brothers are sent into the forest to fend for themselves, forging a bond through hunger, freedom and endurance. Before the summer is over, a decision fractures that world, leaving a scar that will mark their family for generations. The wondrous, profound and deeply moving debut novel by one of Norway’s finest artists, Lars Elling… ‘This gorgeous bildungsroman also delivers a gripping historical novel … as tactile and eternal as one of the author's own paintings. As satisfying as anything you'll read all year’ Joshua Ferris ‘Lyrical and sometimes brutal descriptions of their adventures in the natural world evoke … Huckleberry Finn or Swallows and Amazons, but Elling’s young “Princes” are fated to grow up into resentful, troubled men in a difficult century’ Financial Times ‘A lyrical, haunting, unforgettable novel about brotherhood, memory and the fractures that shape generations. It reads like a modern classic’ Louisa Treger ________ 1985. Nineteen-year-old Filip spends his days playing football, listening to music on his Walkman and drawing, searching for something he cannot yet name. He lives in a large family house shared with his grandparents, where an old rift between his grandfather Arnstein and Arnstein’s brother Truls still governs the atmosphere. The cause appears trivial, an apple tree dropping fruit across a boundary fence, but the bitterness between the brothers speaks of something far older and deeper. 1912. With Europe on the brink of upheaval, Arnstein and Truls are sent into the forest for the summer by their stern father, determined that his sons should learn to endure hardship. Left to fend for themselves among travellers, log drivers and Forest Finns, the brothers live from the land, fishing, hunting and roaming the vast woodland. Cold and hungry, yet bound together by fierce loyalty and affection, they crown themselves the princes of Pauper’s Pond, rulers of a world shaped by freedom, imagination and shared struggle. Until, back home,