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The Girl on the Sofa

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( 150 ratings, 19 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The Girl on the Sofa follows a girl on the brink of adulthood, grappling with resentment towards her mother and older sister, and longing for her absent sailor father. As she contemplates her future and considers becoming a painter, a woman approaching middle age paints a self-portrait, reflecting on her younger self. The play intertwines two moments in one womanโ€™s life, exploring how past and present emotions are entangled.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$5200

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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Readers and theatre-goers interested in intense, poetic drama and explorations of human emotions through the lens of personal and artistic struggle will find this work compelling.

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The Girl on the Sofa is a translation of a play by Norway's greatest living writer, Jon Fosse. Translated here by Socttish playwright David Harrower and oroiginally produced at Edinburgh's prestigious Traverse Theatre.

A girl sits on a sofa, not knowing what to do with herself. She argues with her mother and envies her older sister. She also longs for her absent father, a seaman. A middle-aged woman paints a portrait of herself as a young girl, sitting on a sofa, but sheโ€™s beginning to doubt her artistic ability. Still at odds with her sister and her mother and haunted by her dead father, sheโ€™s unable to shake the continuing presence of the past in her lifeโ€ฆ

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A girl on the verge of adulthood is sitting on a sofa. She is unhappy: she resents her mother and older sister and longs for her absent father, a sailor. What is she going to do with her life? She considers becoming a painter...

A woman approaching middle age is painting a self-portrait. She is watching her younger self: the girl on the sofa. The Girl on the Sofa juxtaposes two stories from the life of one woman and explores the complex interweaving of the past with the present.

It is a new play by Norway's leading playwright Jon Fosse. His intense, poetic and often disturbing writing probes and lays bare human emotions. The Girl on the Sofa is given its world premiere in a version by acclaimed Scots playwright David Harrower, at the Royal Lyceum Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2002.

Series: Oberon Modern Plays

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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Guardian: "Brilliant - Paradoxically, it creates something of great aesthetic beauty out of a work that deals with painter's block."

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781840023268

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 08 October 2002

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Oberon Books Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 210.0mm

Weight: 142g

Pages: 96

About the Author

Jon Fosse's work includes novels, poetry, essays and books for children. He is one of the most produced playwrights in Europe and his plays have been translated into more than forty languages. Oberon Books publishes Plays One (Someone Is Going to Come, The Name, The Guitar Man, The Child), Plays Three (Mother and Child, Sleep my Baby Sleep, Afternoon, Beautiful, Death Variations), Plays Four (And We'll Never Be Parted, The Son, Visits, Meanwhile the Lights Go Down and Everything Becomes Black), Plays Five (Suzannah, Living Secretly, The Dead Dogs, A Red Butterfly's Wing, Warm, Telemakos, Sleep), Nightsongs, The Girl on the Sofa and I Am The Wind. Fosse was made a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Merite of France in 2007 and received The International Ibsen Award in 2010.

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