''Don't Leave Me'' () is a 2009 novel by the Norwegian writer

Stig Sæterbakken Stig Sæterbakken (4 January 1966 – 24 January 2012) was a Norwegian author. He wrote novels, essays and poems, and worked as a translator. Life and career Stig Sæterbakken published his first book at the age of 18, a collection of poems ...

. It tells the story of a 17-year-old boy with a dark personality who falls in love with a woman for the first time, but his fear that she will leave him destroys the relationship. The story is told in reverse chronology and written in second person.

Publication

The book was published in 2009 through

Cappelen Damm Cappelen Damm AS is a Norwegian publisher established in 2007. The company is Norway's largest publishing company, publishing fiction and non-fiction works, including academic literature. It resulted from the merger of J.W. Cappelens Forlag, fou ...

. An English translation by Seán Kinsella is set to be published in July 2016.

Reception

Anne Cathrine Straume of

NRK The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (), commonly known by its initialism NRK, is a Norwegian state-run, government-influenced radio and television public broadcasting company. The NRK broadcasts three national TV channels and thirteen nat ...

wrote:

Sæterbakken doesn't explain, he lays out situations. And they are distinctively teenager-like, where small details in friends' word choices can get unproportional importance. ... If you aren't tempted by yet another unhappy love story, you should read Sæterbakken because of the language. This text gives me the sensation that every sentence is carefully elaborated, that the language wants something, moves towards something, grabs ahold.

Dagbladet () is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally it was considered the main liberal newspaper of Norway, with a ...

s Maya Troberg criticised the story for being predictable, but wrote:

''Don't Leave Me'' is a novel that comes close to formal perfection. With elegance and ease, a complex story is served—about existential loneliness and isolation, inner rage and darkness.

References

External links

Publicity page
at the Norwegian publisher's website
Publicity page
at the American publisher's website 2009 novels 21st-century Norwegian novels Norwegian-language novels Novels by Stig Sæterbakken Cappelen Damm books {{2000s-ya-novel-stub