{"id":259567,"date":"2024-01-05T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=259567"},"modified":"2024-01-04T13:09:15","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T18:09:15","slug":"exclusive-cover-reveal-of-if-only-by-vigdis-hjorth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/exclusive-cover-reveal-of-if-only-by-vigdis-hjorth\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive Cover Reveal of “If Only” by Vigdis Hjorth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for the<\/em> novel If Only<\/a> by Vigdis Hjorth, which will be published by Verso Books on September 3, 2024. Preorder the book here<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“A relatively young woman, aged thirty. She married in her early twenties, had two children. It is winter. January and minus 14\u00b0C, white, frosty mist around the parked car, around the spruces, the mailbox on its post, but higher up the sky is blue, clear, the sun has come back. She has written in her diary that she is waiting for the heartbreak that will turn her into her true self. She has an impending sense of doom or possibly her own death.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So opens Vigids Hjorth\u2019s ground-breaking novel from 2001, which melds the yearning, doomed potency of Annie Ernaux\u2019s\u00a0A Simple Passion<\/em>\u00a0with the scale and force of\u00a0Anna Karenina<\/em>. It asks, can passion be mistaken for love? And proceeds to document the destruction a decade defined by such a misconstruction can yield on a life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here is the cover, art by Anja Niemi. <\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Editor Cian McCourt:<\/strong> “We used the Norwegian neo-romantic painter Harald\u00a0Sohlberg for the cover for\u00a0Will and Testament<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0which\u00a0did a grand\u00a0job representing the gravitas of that novel (and the painting helpfully featured a cabin). But with the next Hjorth novel we published,\u00a0Long Live the\u00a0Post Horn!<\/a><\/em>,<\/a>\u00a0I wanted something\u00a0that captured the very contemporary, very relatable angst in her fiction,\u00a0as well as hinting\u00a0at the humour in her writing, which often goes unremarked on. I’d loved Anja Niemi’s work for a long while, and when\u00a0the penny dropped that she was Norwegian (and a fan of Vigdis, as it turns out), she was the clear choice.\u00a0 And I’m delighted we can return to her for\u00a0If Only<\/em>. This new cover gets right\u00a0at the heart of how a love affair, when played out in its most ardent, obsessive key, can unmoor you from your sense of self. I think it speaks to the awful ambivalence\u00a0true passion begets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Vigdis Hjorth: <\/strong>“I like it immediately. I like it intensely. I like that it\u2019s so red. I like that it is not naturalistic, that it is artificial. I like that the woman\u2019s face is realistic in its expression, the horror at the sight of what may be her own future self.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The design team: <\/strong>“We were thrilled to be able to feature the stunning work of Norwegian artist\u00a0Anja Niemi on the cover. Like Hjorth’s brilliant novel, Niemi’s\u00a0‘The Socialite’\u00a0implores the viewer to investigate her relationship\u2014not to her self\u2014but to her selves.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for the novel If Only by Vigdis Hjorth, which will be published by Verso Books on September 3, 2024. Preorder the book here. “A relatively young woman, aged thirty. She married in her early twenties, had two children. It is winter. January and minus 14\u00b0C, white, frosty mist around the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":259570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6177,243],"tags":[5572,6039,5678],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nExclusive Cover Reveal of "If Only" by Vigdis Hjorth - Electric Literature<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The cover implores the viewer to investigate her relationship\u2014not to her self\u2014but to her selves\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/exclusive-cover-reveal-of-if-only-by-vigdis-hjorth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exclusive Cover Reveal of "If Only" by Vigdis Hjorth - 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