Description:
Johanne, Johanne is an SMS (Short Message Service, or text messaging) novel about a young woman's flight from the often mundane reality of everyday existence and her knife-edge attempt at forging an identity for herself in a lifestyle obsessed, big city environment, where unlimited options seem available at every turn: freedom, career, excitement, sex, love, security, husband and babies, "whatever."
The book follows Johannes's life for nine months via her text messages (and only hers) to the somewhat older Jonas, who fulfills her dream of a huge sweeping illicit love affair, but also forces her to make some fateful choices. Much is possible, but how much is wise?
A very cleverly constructed, multi-layered story that initially reads as a sexting novel but soon confronts every reader with a range of much deeper questions. A smartphone mirror into the way we live right now, where 50 Shades of Grey is shocked to meet Flaubert and Kierkegaard in digital space.
Brief description: Paul Larkin worked for five years in the Danish Merchant Navy before taking a degree in Scandinavian and Celtic Studies. Larkin then went on to train as a film director with the BBC. He had a long career in journalism and film/documentary making before going back to work with Scandinavian languages and fiction in general as a translator, literary critic and author.