Vaim Hotel

By Nobel Laureate in Literature Jon Fosse, Vaim Hotel continues a triptych of novels set in a remote Norwegian fishing village.

No one knows why The Guest has traveled to Vaim. He checks into the Vaim Hotel, whose only other inhabitant is Brita, the domineering proprietor who swears she’s seen him before and slips into his daily wanderings. As he acquaints himself with village life, The Guest soon learns that Vaim is not like other places.

Then things start to vanish: his new fishing pole; his wallet, bag, and car keys. With no way to pay his bill, The Guest must accept that his short trip has become an indefinite stay.

Suffused with dark humor and “mystical realism” (The Guardian), Vaim Hotel—which can be read on its own or as the second of a loose triptych—occupies the intersection of the mundane and uncanny. It’s a mesmerizing tragicomic novel unfolding a world caught between temporal reality and otherworldly implications—where everything is as it's been, and nothing is as it seems.