Monica Isakstuen

Be Kind to the Animals

Vær snill med dyrene

A small family of three is falling apart. They couldn’t make it. Karen couldn’t make it. While doing everything right – parting as friends, signing the papers, sharing custody, the way a modern woman is supposed to, everything inside her is rebelling. No, the child is mine. I’m its mother. There is nothing modern about me.
Be Kind to the Animals is a raw, warm, acute, but at the same time surprising novel about being in the ruins of a marriage with the one you care about the most – every other week.

Winner of the 2016 Norwegian National Book Award Brageprisen for Fiction.

Isakstuen vær snill med dyrene

‘An extraordinary reading experience’

Hamar Arbeiderblad

‘…. merciless, but also surprisingly funny, with an abundance of ideas.’

Morgenbladet

‘An incredibly beautiful and precise description of a life dilemma. The world needs to see this book.’

Sissel Gran, author, psychologist and marital therapist
Isakstuen, monica photo paal audestad
Photo: Paal Audestad

Monica Isakstuen (b. 1976) made her literary debut in 2009. Her 2014 novel Replay about pianist Joyce Hatto and the greatest fraud in classical music earned rave reviews, with VG naming it one of the best books of the year.

Isakstuen is one of the participants chosen for NORLA’s development programme for new literary talents “New Voices”, a part of the project of Norway as Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2019.