Gaute Heivoll - Selected Title Author

What is your book about?

My Time in These Woods is about married couple Johannes and Ingeborg and their highly unusual life together throughout much of the last century – from the beginning of the 1930s, until the mid-seventies. Johannes, the eldest of two brothers at Hesland farm, falls in love with the maid, Ingeborg, and they get married a short time later. When his father dies, Johannes is ready to continue running the farm. But it all turns out differently to how he imagined. Slowly, a darker side to Ingeborg emerges. She can be short-tempered and unstable without Johannes understanding why; she goes for long walks alone in the forest and doesn’t return home until the morning after. Johannes lives for a long time hoping that it will pass, but Ingeborg’s illness becomes more and more dominant. Soon it is ruling both of their lives, and Johannes can see no other option but for them to move out of his father’s farm.

What inspired you to write the book?

The novel is based on a real married couple, and to a large degree follows their lives and fate. I was born and raised on the same farm they had lived in for several years until 1941. My grandfather had then claimed his right to the farm, which meant the couple had to move out again. It was this closeness to both the place and the people, along with my own family history, that made me want to write the novel. My Time in These Woods shows the greatness and drama that exists in every human life, even the seemingly uneventful ones. It is a novel about family and belonging, but above all, it is about irradiant love, that endures everything, believes in everything and hopes for everything.

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