Published in 1986, ‘Hudløs himmel’ is a novel by Norwegian author Herbjørg Wassmo that won the ‘Nordic Council Literature Prize’ in 1987. Born on an island close to the polar circle in Norway, Wassmo made her debut in 1976 with the collection of poems ‘Vingeslag’. Her books have been translated into 14 different languages and have become part of literature teaching in all Norwegian schools and universities. ‘Hudløs himmel’ is the third part of the trilogy launched in 1981 with ‘The House with blind glass windows’ and followed by the second part ‘Det stumme rommet’: the protagonist of the novels, Tora, grows up in a small fishing village in northern Norway after World War II. She finds out that she is of German origin, her father a soldier in the German occupation army, shamefully for her. Tora is being teased and bullied, and she is also sexually abused by her stepfather: little by little, she ends up in denial of her own body, in a linguistic chaos and, finally, in a full-blown psychosis. We follow Tora as she strives to find her adult self, while the barren surrounding landscape lends character and weight to the people of the fishing village in northern Norway. According to the Adjudicating Committee, "Hudløs himmel" is a remarkably nuanced portrayal of a young woman, written in a sensitive language yet with a dramatic reality: the ‘German kid’ Tora, the exploited, wins strength by living through others.
