Zero

I tell her I’ve stopped taking my pills
I write that I’m still not well, that it’s making day-to-day life difficult
That I often do things I regret, and that there’s some sort of membrane between what I want to do and whatever I end up doing
That I really want to be an actor, but that it’s a dream that seems all too distant for the time being
I tell her I use and abuse alcohol and drugs, and that I’ve got a death wish that sometimes becomes difficult to ignore
That I don’t know who I am
That I change my mind as frequently as I change my socks
That I’m horrible to the people around me
That my sex life is depraved
Gine Cornelia Pedersen’s début novel won the prestigious Tarjei Vesaas First Book Award in its native Norway upon publication and went on to

garner numerous glowing reviews, with major broadsheet Aftenposten declaring ‘Sometimes, as a reviewer, one forgets a work’s failings and

mistakes and becomes completely absorbed by an insistent narrative voice. That’s the case with Gine Cornelia Pedersen’s début, a firework out of control: sparks fly all over the place and the rocket could strike anywhere – and does…’

Elsewhere described by the Norwegian press as ‘like listening to a punk-rock single’, Zero finds its young, female protagonist constantly torn

between hope and despair, rage and confusion, as she tries to find her place in and, eventually, far outwith, society.