Half-Days and Whole Years

"I had come to get an impression of the daily life of a famous woman who had lived for a long time in this town and died here years ago. I had seen pictures of her, sitting at the grand piano, listening to music." And, suddenly, the narrator begins to see the world with a stranger's eyes, and to walk through it with a stranger's stride. Hanna Johansen's characters never fail to arouse a reader's curiosity. In "The Letcher" she gives a new twist to the legend of Bluebeard, in "The Cigarette Lighter" a woman explores the childhood of her dead brother, and in "Ten Short Stories About Love" she presents an ironicand humorous panorama of failed and successful attempts at love. By making her heroes and heroines deviate just one step from the straight and narrow path, Johansen lets us glimpse the other side of everyday reality.