The novel, which is translated by Charlotte Barslund, won The Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 2009. It is set in Norway in 1989 when Communism in Europe was crumbling. Arvid Jansen, 37, is in the throes of a divorce. At the same time, his mother is diagnosed with cancer. Over a few intense autumn days, we follow Arvid as he struggles to find a new footing in his life, while all the established patterns around him are changing at staggering speed. As he attempts to negotiate the present, he casts his mind back to holidays on the beach with his brothers, to courtship, and to his early working life, when as a young Communist he abandoned his studies to work on a production line. I Curse the River of Time is an honest, heartbreaking yet humorous portrayal of a complicated mother-son relationship told in Petterson’s precise prose.
Per Petterson was born in Oslo 18 July 1952. His published his first book, ‘Aske i munnen, sand i skoa’ in 1989. Since then he published a number of novels to rave reviews. ‘Siberia’ (1996), a novel set in the Second World War, was published in English in 1998 and nominated for The Nordic Council's Literature Prize. His novel ‘In the Wake’ (2002) won the Brage Prize in 2000.
In 2006, the Petterson became known as the ‘Scandinavian dark horse’ in the UK when he won the Independent Foreign Fiction prize ahead of a field which was dominated by eastern European authors and included both the Nobel prize winner Imre Kertesz and Impac winner Tahar Ben Jelloun. Petterson won the £10,000 prize for his fifth novel, Out Stealing Horses, which the judges called "truly remarkable". The novel also won the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The same year the New York Times Book Review named Out Stealing Horses as one of the 10 best books of the year.