Kristjana Gunnars

Combining the genres of fiction, memoir, the familiar essay and theoretical speculation, The Rose Garden forms an unusual synthesis. The protagonist and narrator is a Canadian literary scholar on study leave in Germany. While there, her involvement with her books on the one hand and a love relationship on the other creates a surprising blend of life and fiction. Her readings in classical European texts forefront the question of a woman reader's response. Her involvement with her lover makes her wonder why there is so little difference between life and literature on the level of experience. This is an uncommon book that defies traditional rules of style and genre and provokes the question of what meaning literary works actually have in our lives.

A woman hopelessly in love boards the night train to Nykobing, Denmark, not knowing if the lover she leaves on the station platform will ever be with her again. Night Train to Nykobing is a transformative tale that articulates the dense codes of love, the passion of waiting, and the terrifying intensity of a life on the edge of abandonment. But it also is a story of return to a country, to a culture, to a language, and finally to a heart that has wandered through the desert of time. As ever, Kristjana Gunnars writes a textured palimpsest of pain and joy, of feeling and knowing entwined with the desperations of everyday life.