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Girl, 1983
Called a “masterpiece” (Ali Smith), this stunning novel explores desire and anxiety, beauty and youth, memory and power.
Paris, a winter’s night in 1983. The girl is sixteen years old, lost in unfamiliar streets. On a scrap of paper in her pocket is the address of a photographer, K, thirty years her senior. Almost four decades later, as her life and the world around her begins to unravel, the grown woman seeks to comprehend the young girl of before. Set in Oslo, New York, and Paris, Girl, 1983 is a bravura quest through layers of oblivion that probes the elegiac sway of memory as she looks for ways to disclose a long-guarded secret. A delineation of time and place over the course of a life, this remarkable novel insistently crisscrosses the path of a wayward sixteen-year-old girl lost in Paris. Girl, 1983 is a raw, stark, and haunting exposure of beauty and forgetting, desire and shame, power and powerlessness.
Paris, a winter’s night in 1983. The girl is sixteen years old, lost in unfamiliar streets. On a scrap of paper in her pocket is the address of a photographer, K, thirty years her senior. Almost four decades later, as her life and the world around her begins to unravel, the grown woman seeks to comprehend the young girl of before. Set in Oslo, New York, and Paris, Girl, 1983 is a bravura quest through layers of oblivion that probes the elegiac sway of memory as she looks for ways to disclose a long-guarded secret. A delineation of time and place over the course of a life, this remarkable novel insistently crisscrosses the path of a wayward sixteen-year-old girl lost in Paris. Girl, 1983 is a raw, stark, and haunting exposure of beauty and forgetting, desire and shame, power and powerlessness.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published November 19, 2021
181 people are currently reading
7652 people want to read
About the author
Linn Ullmann
12 books338 followersLinn Ullmann is the daughter of actress, author and director Liv Ullmann and director and screenwriter Ingmar Bergman.
She is a graduate of New York University, where she studied English literature. She returned to Norway in 1990 to pursue a career in journalism.
Her first novel Before You Sleep was published in 1998. Her second novel, Stella Descending (2001) received glowing reviews. Her third novel Grace was published in 2002 and won the prominent literary award “The reader’s prize” in Norway and was named one of the ten best novels of that year by the prestigious Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.
In 2007, Grace was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the UK. That same year, Ullmann was awarded the prestigeous Norwegian Amalie Skram prize.
Her fourth novel, A Blessed Child, was published in the fall of 2005, and was shortlisted for the Brage Price, one of Norway's most prestigious literary awards. Currently she is working as a journalist and a regular columnist in Norway’s leading newspaper Aftenposten.
She is a graduate of New York University, where she studied English literature. She returned to Norway in 1990 to pursue a career in journalism.
Her first novel Before You Sleep was published in 1998. Her second novel, Stella Descending (2001) received glowing reviews. Her third novel Grace was published in 2002 and won the prominent literary award “The reader’s prize” in Norway and was named one of the ten best novels of that year by the prestigious Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.
In 2007, Grace was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the UK. That same year, Ullmann was awarded the prestigeous Norwegian Amalie Skram prize.
Her fourth novel, A Blessed Child, was published in the fall of 2005, and was shortlisted for the Brage Price, one of Norway's most prestigious literary awards. Currently she is working as a journalist and a regular columnist in Norway’s leading newspaper Aftenposten.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 311 reviews
January 18, 2022
What did I just read?
I feel like this book was only published because she's famous, and not because it's well written or because it has any substance. Sure, her way of splitting the story with small anecdotes here and there is nicely done, but that's about it. She repeats herself again and again and again. How many times does she need to write that she wore a blue coat and a red hat?
I feel like this book was only published because she's famous, and not because it's well written or because it has any substance. Sure, her way of splitting the story with small anecdotes here and there is nicely done, but that's about it. She repeats herself again and again and again. How many times does she need to write that she wore a blue coat and a red hat?
July 28, 2023
En veldig godt skrevet bok, og en ærlig fortelling om en jente som dro alene til Paris vinteren 1983, og om en dame som nesten 40 år senere skal prøve å huske både hva som skjedde i Paris, og hvordan det har påvirket livet hennes senere. Handlingen hopper fort i tid og sted, men det fungerer overraskende godt. Det kan dog blir litt for mye Torshov i monitor.
Å gå seg vill betyr vanligvis at man har en idé om hvor man skal, og så tar man feil. Jeg vet ikke hvor jeg er eller hvor jeg skal.
OPPDATERING juli 2023: I mai 2022 kom jeg i skade for å skrive at det ble "for mye Torshov i monitor". Etter at jeg nå selv har flyttet til Torshov, og bladd litt i denne boka igjen trekker jeg tilbake denne påstanden. Det er ikke for mye Torshov i monitor.
Å gå seg vill betyr vanligvis at man har en idé om hvor man skal, og så tar man feil. Jeg vet ikke hvor jeg er eller hvor jeg skal.
OPPDATERING juli 2023: I mai 2022 kom jeg i skade for å skrive at det ble "for mye Torshov i monitor". Etter at jeg nå selv har flyttet til Torshov, og bladd litt i denne boka igjen trekker jeg tilbake denne påstanden. Det er ikke for mye Torshov i monitor.
July 31, 2025
A girl flies to Paris in a blue coat and a red wool hat. She's sixteen. He’s forty-four. He works for Vogue. There’s a studio that looks like a bunker and a camera waiting to make her visible, or to erase her. Her mother says she’s too young. She goes anyway.
Somewhere between the Carnegie Hall elevator where he first saw her and the blue-tiled bathroom in his Paris apartment, she begins to slip out of herself. She drinks until the nights vanish into white. She borrows a silk dress that barely reaches her thighs. She forgets the name of her hotel. She gets lost in a city where she doesn’t speak the language. He offers her Mia Farrow’s haircut. She says Rosemary’s Baby. He laughs and calls her “the girl of her father.” She smokes his cigarettes, poses for his lens, and vanishes a little more each time the shutter clicks.
Later, much later, she speaks to the girl she used to be, a girl who may never have existed except in longing and absence. “You are the girl who does not want to die,” she writes, even as the girl in question keeps getting lost.
Girl, 1983 is a blue bruise of a book, and Linn Ullmann presses hard on every shade. “Everything I write about here is made mostly of forgetting,” she confesses, and proceeds to build a cathedral of absence.
The body of the girl appears again and again: bare shoulders, ears weighed with rhinestones, knees cold on café seats, hands tucked into borrowed sleeves. There are late-night drinks and late-night silences, moments with men who want to borrow her face, her hunger, her youth.
A girl named Jane vanishes. Some say Tokyo. Some say overdose. A mother in Massachusetts answers phones that never rang. A daughter writes a note: Maybe it’s hard. But I promise I’ll be honest with you from now on.
Ullmann loops memory and myth until they fray into threads. She remembers a song, She’s a Maneater, but learns, decades later, that it wasn’t about a woman at all. It was about New York. That makes sense. So much here looks like desire until it steps into the light and reveals its teeth.
Reading this book is like trying to memorize your own reflection while the mirror is fogged. Ullmann writes as if each word might fracture the surface again.
The girl returns in fragments: on an airplane beside a feverish professor; under a lamppost begging a couple for help; in a New York museum studying tardigrades who survive by turning into barrels. The writing pulses with grace and misdirection, like a photograph that won't hold still.
The author speaks to herself, to her daughter, to the reader, and to the invisible sister who may be nothing but need. She asks: how do you write about what never had a name? What happens when the only thing you remember is forgetting?
There’s a moment in the middle where she walks through Paris at night and begs a couple for help. They smile and walk on. That is the book. That scene. That shrug. Girl, 1983 stays with you the way perfume stays in a coat you no longer wear, the way shame remembers what memory disowns. It says: You were there. You were seen. Even if no one else remembers.
Somewhere between the Carnegie Hall elevator where he first saw her and the blue-tiled bathroom in his Paris apartment, she begins to slip out of herself. She drinks until the nights vanish into white. She borrows a silk dress that barely reaches her thighs. She forgets the name of her hotel. She gets lost in a city where she doesn’t speak the language. He offers her Mia Farrow’s haircut. She says Rosemary’s Baby. He laughs and calls her “the girl of her father.” She smokes his cigarettes, poses for his lens, and vanishes a little more each time the shutter clicks.
Later, much later, she speaks to the girl she used to be, a girl who may never have existed except in longing and absence. “You are the girl who does not want to die,” she writes, even as the girl in question keeps getting lost.
Girl, 1983 is a blue bruise of a book, and Linn Ullmann presses hard on every shade. “Everything I write about here is made mostly of forgetting,” she confesses, and proceeds to build a cathedral of absence.
The body of the girl appears again and again: bare shoulders, ears weighed with rhinestones, knees cold on café seats, hands tucked into borrowed sleeves. There are late-night drinks and late-night silences, moments with men who want to borrow her face, her hunger, her youth.
A girl named Jane vanishes. Some say Tokyo. Some say overdose. A mother in Massachusetts answers phones that never rang. A daughter writes a note: Maybe it’s hard. But I promise I’ll be honest with you from now on.
Ullmann loops memory and myth until they fray into threads. She remembers a song, She’s a Maneater, but learns, decades later, that it wasn’t about a woman at all. It was about New York. That makes sense. So much here looks like desire until it steps into the light and reveals its teeth.
Reading this book is like trying to memorize your own reflection while the mirror is fogged. Ullmann writes as if each word might fracture the surface again.
The girl returns in fragments: on an airplane beside a feverish professor; under a lamppost begging a couple for help; in a New York museum studying tardigrades who survive by turning into barrels. The writing pulses with grace and misdirection, like a photograph that won't hold still.
The author speaks to herself, to her daughter, to the reader, and to the invisible sister who may be nothing but need. She asks: how do you write about what never had a name? What happens when the only thing you remember is forgetting?
There’s a moment in the middle where she walks through Paris at night and begs a couple for help. They smile and walk on. That is the book. That scene. That shrug. Girl, 1983 stays with you the way perfume stays in a coat you no longer wear, the way shame remembers what memory disowns. It says: You were there. You were seen. Even if no one else remembers.
October 11, 2022
Den där – för mig – extremt avlägsna drömmen om den parisiska modellvärlden som det pratades så mycket om när jag var barn, som hörde samman med att bli upptäckt, skönhet, låg vikt, längd, Vouge och framgång, den kan nu bli verklighet. Linn Ullmann bjuder oss alla – korta som långa, tjocka som smala, gamla och fula – den erfarenheten.
”Målet är att du ska se ut som en tjugoåring som ser ut som en fjorton- eller femtonåring.”
Linn Ullmann är Skandinaviens givna svar på nobelprisade Annie Ernaux. Den här boken är i stilen oerhört lik Omständigheter som jag läste förra veckan (och ännu tänker på), dessutom går Flicka, 1983 i den franska trikolorens färger. Det finns en berättare som tycks sammanfalla med författaren, hon växlar mellan att se sig omkring, uppehålla sig i nuet och när hon blundar rusar den sextonåriga flicka hon var 1983 genom henne, ut över sidorna och in genom mig. Hon omnämns ömsom i det närgångna första person singular och ömsom i det mer distanserade tredje person (Ernaux grepp).
”Genom att skriva berättelsen så sannfärdigt jag kan, försöker jag samla dem i en kropp – kvinnan från 2021 och flickan från 1983. Jag vet inte om det är möjligt.”
Det kanske är lika bra att jag förtydligar att åtminstone Ullmanns modellvärld innehåller feta, svettiga män som beter sig vidrigt mot unga flickor. Det här var före metoo och låt oss bara hoppas att det är bättre idag (Triangel of Sadness kanske kan utröna det). Flickan som mot sin mammas vilja åker ensam till Paris är oerhört utsatt och skyddslös. Att läsa om hur utlämnad hon är till olika män som hon inte känner i ett främmande land där hon inte kan orientera sig är enormt plågsam läsning.
”Också han kommer många år senare att hinnas ikapp av det förflutna när ett tiotal kvinnor anklagar honom för sexuella trakasserier, våldtäkt och trafficking. Att någonting sånt – rättvisans händer – kan komma att drabba honom en dag föresvävar honom inte. Det föresvävar ingen. Inte männen, inte flickorna. Det är en annan tid.”
Läsaren förstår att det var någonting som hände då i Paris 1983 som flickan – som nu finns någonstans där inuti kvinnan – hållit inom sig. Något mer än att hon var dagvill. Hon kan ibland glömma bort det men hennes kropp glömmer inte.
Jag tycker om att författaren antar en undersökande ansats när hon nystar i minnet och försöker få fatt på sextonåringen. Hon är osäker på varför hon skriver den här boken men hoppas att det ska visa sig. Det är lyckosamt hur hon inkluderar läsaren i den metalitterära skrivprocessen. Prosan är dock ojämn. Vissa avsnitt är enormt bra, gestaltande och drabbande.
”Varje gång det går för honom sluter han ögonen och jag öppnar mina.
Varje gång han somnar sluter han ögonen och jag öppnar mina.”
Men i Ernaux anda tycker jag att boken skulle ha förkortats. Det blir tjatigt med alla upprepningar. Jag är heller inte förtjust i beskrivningarna av vad människor har för kläder.
Jag gillar däremot jättemycket hur hon beskriver alienationen som är ett faktum för henne både som flicka och kvinna. Hon är bokstavligen tudelad då hon har en låtsaskompis, en slags osynlig syster som i barndomen gjorde henne mindre ensam men i tonåren är en källa till osäkerhet.
Jag älskar hur böcker låter oss läsare uppleva och känna på farligheter utan att egentligen riskera någonting mer än besvikelse (det kan vara nog så besvärligt i och för sig, Kristina Lugn fick självmordstankar av dåliga böcker). Modellvärlden är en verklighet som gör sig absolut bäst som (auto)fiktion. Tack till Linn Ullmann som delar med sig så öppenhjärtigt.
”Målet är att du ska se ut som en tjugoåring som ser ut som en fjorton- eller femtonåring.”
Linn Ullmann är Skandinaviens givna svar på nobelprisade Annie Ernaux. Den här boken är i stilen oerhört lik Omständigheter som jag läste förra veckan (och ännu tänker på), dessutom går Flicka, 1983 i den franska trikolorens färger. Det finns en berättare som tycks sammanfalla med författaren, hon växlar mellan att se sig omkring, uppehålla sig i nuet och när hon blundar rusar den sextonåriga flicka hon var 1983 genom henne, ut över sidorna och in genom mig. Hon omnämns ömsom i det närgångna första person singular och ömsom i det mer distanserade tredje person (Ernaux grepp).
”Genom att skriva berättelsen så sannfärdigt jag kan, försöker jag samla dem i en kropp – kvinnan från 2021 och flickan från 1983. Jag vet inte om det är möjligt.”
Det kanske är lika bra att jag förtydligar att åtminstone Ullmanns modellvärld innehåller feta, svettiga män som beter sig vidrigt mot unga flickor. Det här var före metoo och låt oss bara hoppas att det är bättre idag (Triangel of Sadness kanske kan utröna det). Flickan som mot sin mammas vilja åker ensam till Paris är oerhört utsatt och skyddslös. Att läsa om hur utlämnad hon är till olika män som hon inte känner i ett främmande land där hon inte kan orientera sig är enormt plågsam läsning.
”Också han kommer många år senare att hinnas ikapp av det förflutna när ett tiotal kvinnor anklagar honom för sexuella trakasserier, våldtäkt och trafficking. Att någonting sånt – rättvisans händer – kan komma att drabba honom en dag föresvävar honom inte. Det föresvävar ingen. Inte männen, inte flickorna. Det är en annan tid.”
Läsaren förstår att det var någonting som hände då i Paris 1983 som flickan – som nu finns någonstans där inuti kvinnan – hållit inom sig. Något mer än att hon var dagvill. Hon kan ibland glömma bort det men hennes kropp glömmer inte.
Jag tycker om att författaren antar en undersökande ansats när hon nystar i minnet och försöker få fatt på sextonåringen. Hon är osäker på varför hon skriver den här boken men hoppas att det ska visa sig. Det är lyckosamt hur hon inkluderar läsaren i den metalitterära skrivprocessen. Prosan är dock ojämn. Vissa avsnitt är enormt bra, gestaltande och drabbande.
”Varje gång det går för honom sluter han ögonen och jag öppnar mina.
Varje gång han somnar sluter han ögonen och jag öppnar mina.”
Men i Ernaux anda tycker jag att boken skulle ha förkortats. Det blir tjatigt med alla upprepningar. Jag är heller inte förtjust i beskrivningarna av vad människor har för kläder.
Jag gillar däremot jättemycket hur hon beskriver alienationen som är ett faktum för henne både som flicka och kvinna. Hon är bokstavligen tudelad då hon har en låtsaskompis, en slags osynlig syster som i barndomen gjorde henne mindre ensam men i tonåren är en källa till osäkerhet.
Jag älskar hur böcker låter oss läsare uppleva och känna på farligheter utan att egentligen riskera någonting mer än besvikelse (det kan vara nog så besvärligt i och för sig, Kristina Lugn fick självmordstankar av dåliga böcker). Modellvärlden är en verklighet som gör sig absolut bäst som (auto)fiktion. Tack till Linn Ullmann som delar med sig så öppenhjärtigt.
January 27, 2023
2.5. Obviously, her experience as a model in France is harrowing, however, I do not think that this book has added something new to the theme / genre. Repetitive, unreliable narrator, confusing time jumps.
August 8, 2025
A middle-aged woman reflects on the fateful trip she took to Paris at 16, attempting to make sense and give order to the memories and forgetting that have plagued her in the decades since. Having been scouted by a photographer named K in New York, the young girl is flown to Paris alone. The narrative continually circles back to a night in January 1983, the girl’s first night in Paris, when she wanders the streets, looking for her hotel whose name she cannot remember. What she has written down, however, is K’s address and so she eventually makes her way there. I’m sure you can guess the events that occur next.
Now looking back and attempting to write about the night, the girl-now-woman digs through the recesses of her memory, circling and looping back to the small details she knows for certain. She hopes that bringing precision to the memory will end her reoccurring depression, will cure the weightlessness, the feeling that she’s never quite walking on solid ground. The tone is somber, reflective, solemn. That is…unless you read the audiobook.
A note on the audiobook—never have I heard a narrator read a book in a way that is so out of alignment with the tone of the text. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the narrator was having a rockin’ good time recounting the lingering effects of trauma she’s still suffering from 40 years on. The narrator is sly, flippant, and her intonation is all over the place. It was nonsensical at best and inappropriate at worst.
Skip the audio. Pick up the book, it’s a good one.
Now looking back and attempting to write about the night, the girl-now-woman digs through the recesses of her memory, circling and looping back to the small details she knows for certain. She hopes that bringing precision to the memory will end her reoccurring depression, will cure the weightlessness, the feeling that she’s never quite walking on solid ground. The tone is somber, reflective, solemn. That is…unless you read the audiobook.
A note on the audiobook—never have I heard a narrator read a book in a way that is so out of alignment with the tone of the text. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the narrator was having a rockin’ good time recounting the lingering effects of trauma she’s still suffering from 40 years on. The narrator is sly, flippant, and her intonation is all over the place. It was nonsensical at best and inappropriate at worst.
Skip the audio. Pick up the book, it’s a good one.
June 20, 2025
2 yıl önce yüzümü güneşe, bacaklarımı denize verdiğim benzer tarihlerde "huzursuzlar"ın içine vakumlanışımı anımsıyorum da buradaki ullmann'a kanımın kaynamamasına hayıflanıyorum. anne-kız, baba-kız hikayesi daha ilgi çekiciydi.
December 3, 2022
jeg har lige færdiggjort Pige, 1983. rørende historie fortalt på et smukt, udfordrende og poetisk sprog.
fortællingen er bygget op som en spiral: forfatteren fortæller om et fotografi, lidt ad gangen, og fortsætter ud af en tangent, men vender altid tilbage til omdrejningspunktet. sommetider på udfordrende vis.
utroligt spændende fortællerteknik, med en 16 årig pige i paris i 1983 og samme kvinde, 40 år senere, der forsøger at erindre hvad der skete, og hvordan det har påvirket hendes liv. bogen berører emner som magtmisbrug, seksuelt overgreb og håbet om at finde sig selv. forundrende og sanselig fortælling, der går lige i hjertet.
åh ja, og så er det jo autofiktion ;))
helt klart et læs værd.
fortællingen er bygget op som en spiral: forfatteren fortæller om et fotografi, lidt ad gangen, og fortsætter ud af en tangent, men vender altid tilbage til omdrejningspunktet. sommetider på udfordrende vis.
utroligt spændende fortællerteknik, med en 16 årig pige i paris i 1983 og samme kvinde, 40 år senere, der forsøger at erindre hvad der skete, og hvordan det har påvirket hendes liv. bogen berører emner som magtmisbrug, seksuelt overgreb og håbet om at finde sig selv. forundrende og sanselig fortælling, der går lige i hjertet.
åh ja, og så er det jo autofiktion ;))
helt klart et læs værd.
June 11, 2025
3,5 ⭐️
Yazarın bazı yazınsal tercihleri çok zekiceydi ve detayları çok iyi kullandığı oluyordu. Öteki taraftan iç sesim hep Annie Ernaux bunu nasıl güzel anlatırdı deyip durdu. Çok ünlü insanların, sanat dehalarının çocuğu olmak, gölgeler, me-too hareketi, “socially constructed”, rızanın inşası gibi şeylerden bahseden ama en çok birtakım düşünürlere söven bir yorum yazacağım en kısa zamanda, yani umarım.
Yazarın bazı yazınsal tercihleri çok zekiceydi ve detayları çok iyi kullandığı oluyordu. Öteki taraftan iç sesim hep Annie Ernaux bunu nasıl güzel anlatırdı deyip durdu. Çok ünlü insanların, sanat dehalarının çocuğu olmak, gölgeler, me-too hareketi, “socially constructed”, rızanın inşası gibi şeylerden bahseden ama en çok birtakım düşünürlere söven bir yorum yazacağım en kısa zamanda, yani umarım.
June 28, 2022
Det å skulle utforske hva som skjedde for rundt 40 år siden kan være et spennende premiss for en bok. Beskrivelsene av modellmiljøet i Paris på 80-tallet er skremmende og fæle. For meg ble dette allikevel en altfor fragmentarisk og repetitiv bok som kanskje hang seg litt opp i strukturelle valg. Ble også litt lei av Ullmanns turer i Torshovparken under pandemien. For ettertiden kan forøvrig kanskje beskrivelsene av livet med stengte kaféer og kaffedrikking på en benk i en park med god avstand til hverandre være interessante? Vet ikke. Litt kjedelig. Høydepunktet var kanskje telefonsamtalene mellom mor og datter.
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September 11, 2023Liker måten Ullmann veksler mellom de ulike nivåene i romanen på. Det er like mange spørsmål som svar og kanskje er dette den eneste måten å skrive såkalt «virkelighetslitteratur» på? Uten absolutte sannheter. Forfatteren forsøker ikke å skjule sine menneskelige lyter (hukommelsens hull og usannheter) dette er en stor styrke ved romanen.
Sier meg enig med Mollerins omtale «boka forteller noe vesentlig om forholdet mellom glemsel og erindring». En sterk historie om sorg, brutalitet, uskyld, men også stor kjærlighet. Håper vi får flere romaner fra Ullmann som tangerer «virkeligheten» med mer av det enorme litterære overskuddet hun viser.
Sier meg enig med Mollerins omtale «boka forteller noe vesentlig om forholdet mellom glemsel og erindring». En sterk historie om sorg, brutalitet, uskyld, men også stor kjærlighet. Håper vi får flere romaner fra Ullmann som tangerer «virkeligheten» med mer av det enorme litterære overskuddet hun viser.
January 19, 2024
Hogy lehet ennek jó szívvel öt csillagot adni? Sehogy. De annyira hitelesen van megírva, jól visszaadja az emlékezés töredezettségét, a múlt és a jelen összegabalyodását a gondolatainkban. Annyira ösztönös, természetes az egész írás, hogy csakis valóság lehet. A természetességet nagyon szeretem, a valóságot viszont sokszor nem. Itt is rettenet. Az előbbire jár az 5-ös...
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May 28, 2022«Det handler om raseri, sier hun. Du er rasende og viser det ikke. Du holder følelsene dine for deg selv. Men det er ikke sant, sier jeg, jeg viser følelser og blir rasende hele tiden. Det er et problem. Jeg mister besinnelsen hele tiden og sier ting jeg ikke skulle sagt. Ja, men jeg mener ikke det raseriet, sier Irene da og blar i notatboka si, jeg mener det andre raseriet.
Det andre raseriet?
Nettopp, sier hun.
Hvilket andre raseri, sier jeg.
Det du ikke greier å uttrykke, sier hun."
Det er så godt skrevet, dette her. Ullmann lar oss aldri hvile i fortellergrepet sitt. Hun rister oss ut av roen, går tilbake i tid, er her og nå og så plutselig et annet sted. Og boken handler ikke bare om det uhyggelig modellmiljøet der unge jenter blir utnyttet av eldre griske menn, men fy søren- det gjør sterkt inntrykk. Grøss og gru. Ullman skriver ingen andre- hun er noe helt for seg selv. Når jeg leste denne boken følte jeg at hver eneste setning var viktig.
Det andre raseriet?
Nettopp, sier hun.
Hvilket andre raseri, sier jeg.
Det du ikke greier å uttrykke, sier hun."
Det er så godt skrevet, dette her. Ullmann lar oss aldri hvile i fortellergrepet sitt. Hun rister oss ut av roen, går tilbake i tid, er her og nå og så plutselig et annet sted. Og boken handler ikke bare om det uhyggelig modellmiljøet der unge jenter blir utnyttet av eldre griske menn, men fy søren- det gjør sterkt inntrykk. Grøss og gru. Ullman skriver ingen andre- hun er noe helt for seg selv. Når jeg leste denne boken følte jeg at hver eneste setning var viktig.
January 23, 2023
Etter å ha lest den ferdig ville jeg lese den på nytt, både for å få gjentatt det jeg likte og legge merke til nye ting. Det er en sånn bok man kan lese på ny og legge merke til mer, noen små skatter her og der. Det er spennende hvordan forfatteren deler jeg-personen i to, i et «du» der du-et er en engstelig livredd del av henne som hun kaller en skyggesøster. Kan minne om den jungianske skyggen, skyggesiden av oss selv.
(..)«Den svarte, fuktige jorda i brystet ditt, sier du, den viltvoksende, kalde villvinen i lungene dine. Hva om jeg forteller deg at det forsvinner? Eller at det ikke forsvinner, men det blir mindre av det, eller kanskje det ikke blir mindre av det, men det blir større plass i deg til å romme det? En morgen kjenner du at redselen avtar. Kaffen smaker godt, brødskiven smaker også godt - og du har lyst på en til»
(..)«Den svarte, fuktige jorda i brystet ditt, sier du, den viltvoksende, kalde villvinen i lungene dine. Hva om jeg forteller deg at det forsvinner? Eller at det ikke forsvinner, men det blir mindre av det, eller kanskje det ikke blir mindre av det, men det blir større plass i deg til å romme det? En morgen kjenner du at redselen avtar. Kaffen smaker godt, brødskiven smaker også godt - og du har lyst på en til»
October 15, 2022
Ännu en bok med kladdiga män som utnyttjar unga flickor. Verkligheten överträffar dikten och berättelsen är tunn. Vid flera tillfällen tror jag att ljudboken hoppat tillbaka för den upprepar sig med exakt samma formuleringar. Ingen höjdare, läs något annat istället.
May 20, 2023
Var usikker på denne - ligget lenge på nattbordet før jeg orka å lese. Trodde den var overhypa, men nei - den er god og den er vond og den kryper under huden. Ikke la datteren din dra til Paris som 16-åring, eller spark alle menn som tror de kan forsyne seg av unge jenter hardt i pungen.
October 4, 2022
Det er temmelig svært at forstå, denne bog ligefrem er nomineret til Nordisk Råds Litteraturpris…
October 21, 2024
Sitte igjen med en følelse av at dette e en bra bok som eg ikkje e litterær nok til å skjønne.
October 19, 2024
Lagom lång för flygningen mellan Paris (!) och Stockholm. Jobbig läsning på flera vis, och samtidigt fängslande.
January 11, 2024
Syns det e ein veldig god fortelling om ei ung jente som står mellom det å faktisk vær ung og det å ønska at hu va voksnere.
Historien hoppe mye frem og tilbake på flere måter, som til tider gjorde meg litt forvirra av kor i tidslinjå hu befant seg. Men man komme liksom inn i det. Bra bok!!
Historien hoppe mye frem og tilbake på flere måter, som til tider gjorde meg litt forvirra av kor i tidslinjå hu befant seg. Men man komme liksom inn i det. Bra bok!!
July 14, 2025
This book definitely could’ve been much shorter. I understood why it was written like this. The tangled thoughts and memories that wrecked her mind for years! Trying to remember what happened, how it happened, and did it happened the way she actually remembers it is it her mind only allowing her to remember it this way to protect her.
She was only 15 when she first met K. A photographer who was supposed to get her to work with Vogue. She was 16 when she began a relationship with him. She was alone on the streets of New York. Lost. Unsure of herself. Afraid. The shame and guilt.
The book wasn’t hard to get through at all but it was difficult to digest it all and how it was written. Most would probably think that it was flat with no real emotion or depth. Also it was confusing at times when the story kept jumping from past to present time with no transition.
DISCLOSURE: Thank you to WWNorten for gifting me with an ARC of Girl, 1983 through the Goodreads Giveaways. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
She was only 15 when she first met K. A photographer who was supposed to get her to work with Vogue. She was 16 when she began a relationship with him. She was alone on the streets of New York. Lost. Unsure of herself. Afraid. The shame and guilt.
The book wasn’t hard to get through at all but it was difficult to digest it all and how it was written. Most would probably think that it was flat with no real emotion or depth. Also it was confusing at times when the story kept jumping from past to present time with no transition.
DISCLOSURE: Thank you to WWNorten for gifting me with an ARC of Girl, 1983 through the Goodreads Giveaways. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
October 19, 2023
Det jeg likte best her var refleksjonene rundt hvordan hun ser seg selv som 16-åring og hvordan hun ser seg selv som voksen.
Ellers har jeg lært at å ha med eget kart på modelloppdrag i Paris er en god ide. Kjempegod og skummel bok!
Ellers har jeg lært at å ha med eget kart på modelloppdrag i Paris er en god ide. Kjempegod og skummel bok!
September 22, 2023
Veldig spennende og flott skrevet! Likte hvordan Ullmann hopper frem og tilbake i tid og rekkefølge. Var metaete🤤
Og jippi!! Har lest 12 bøker i 2023. Mitt nyttårsforsett🥂
Og jippi!! Har lest 12 bøker i 2023. Mitt nyttårsforsett🥂
March 14, 2024
Hva er det med franske menn?
July 25, 2025
Linn Ullmann's Girl, 1983 arrives as a crystalline yet fragmentary meditation on the treacherous territories of memory, desire, and the ways trauma reshapes the architecture of a life. This Norwegian author, daughter of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and actress Liv Ullmann, has crafted what might be her most vulnerable and unflinching work—a novel that operates less as traditional narrative and more as an archaeological excavation of a sixteen-year-old girl's devastating encounter with an older photographer in 1980s Paris.
The book follows two temporal threads: the unnamed narrator as a sixteen-year-old girl lost in the winter streets of Paris, carrying only a scrap of paper with the address of K, a forty-four-year-old photographer, and the same woman nearly four decades later, grappling with depression, anxiety, and the resurfacing of buried memories. What emerges is not a linear story but rather a kaleidoscopic examination of how certain moments can irrevocably alter the trajectory of a life.
The Architecture of Memory and Forgetting
Ullmann's greatest achievement in Girl, 1983 lies in her masterful rendering of how memory functions—not as a reliable narrator but as a shifting, elusive presence that reveals and conceals in equal measure. The adult narrator frequently acknowledges the gaps in her recollection, the "splash of white paint where the face should be," borrowing Anne Carson's phrase to describe the untranslatable nature of certain experiences.
The fragmented structure mirrors the protagonist's fractured relationship with her past. Ullmann employs a technique of repetition and variation, circling back to certain scenes—the elevator encounter, the hotel room, the photographer's apartment—each time revealing new details or questioning previous assumptions. This approach creates an almost hypnotic rhythm that draws readers into the narrator's obsessive need to understand what happened to her.
The novel's tripartite structure, divided into sections titled "Blue," "Red," and "White," suggests both the emotional landscape of the experience and the clinical coldness with which trauma can be examined. Each color carries symbolic weight: blue for the melancholy of memory, red for passion and violence, white for the blank spaces where words fail.
The Complexities of Power and Vulnerability
At its core, Girl, 1983 is an unflinching examination of power dynamics and the ways in which youth and inexperience can be exploited. The relationship between the sixteen-year-old narrator and K is portrayed with a disturbing authenticity that avoids sensationalism while never minimizing the harm done. Ullmann presents K not as a monster but as a recognizably human figure whose actions have devastating consequences—perhaps making him more terrifying than any caricature of evil.
The novel excels in its portrayal of how the girl becomes complicit in her own exploitation, not through any fault of her own but through the complex psychology of survival and the desire to be seen as mature and sophisticated. The narrator's adult self reflects on this with a mixture of compassion and horror, understanding both the girl's vulnerability and her agency within impossible circumstances.
Particularly powerful is Ullmann's exploration of how trauma becomes internalized, how the girl begins to see herself through the eyes of her exploiters. The modeling world, with its reduction of young women to objects of consumption, becomes a metaphor for broader societal attitudes toward female sexuality and worth.
Literary Craftsmanship and Translation
Martin Aitken's translation preserves the spare, almost clinical precision of Ullmann's prose while maintaining its emotional resonance. The language is deceptively simple, often employing short, declarative sentences that accumulate power through repetition and careful placement. Ullmann has a gift for finding the exact detail that illuminates an entire emotional landscape—the blue tiles of a bathroom floor, the sound of a dog drinking water, the weight of a red woolly hat.
The novel's experimental structure, with its time shifts and repetitions, could easily become pretentious or exhausting, but Ullmann maintains perfect control. The fragmentation feels organic to the subject matter rather than imposed, and the occasional breaks into lists or fragments serve to emphasize the narrator's struggle to impose order on chaotic experience.
The integration of historical events—from the arrest of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie to Reagan's "evil empire" speech—grounds the personal narrative in larger political contexts without overwhelming the intimate story. These references serve as temporal anchors and suggest connections between personal and collective trauma.
Emotional Resonance and Psychological Depth
Where Girl, 1983 truly succeeds is in its psychological authenticity. The adult narrator's depression is rendered with devastating accuracy, from the physical sensation of "floating" above the ground to the exhaustion of maintaining a façade of normalcy. Ullmann captures the particular quality of trauma-related anxiety—the way past and present collapse into each other, how the body remembers what the mind tries to forget.
The relationship between the narrator and her mysterious "shadow-sister"—a presence that may be dissociation, creativity, or simple survival mechanism—adds another layer of complexity to the narrative. This figure represents both the narrator's attempt to protect herself and her ongoing struggle with fragmentation and identity.
The novel's exploration of mother-daughter relationships is equally nuanced. The narrator's mother emerges as both protector and inadvertent enabler, loving but ultimately unable to prevent her daughter's encounter with danger. Their phone conversations across time zones become poignant metaphors for the distances that trauma creates even within loving relationships.
Critical Considerations and Limitations
While Girl, 1983 is undeniably powerful, it is not without limitations. The experimental structure, while thematically appropriate, can occasionally feel repetitive rather than revelatory. Some readers may find the fragmentary approach frustrating, particularly those seeking narrative closure or clear resolution.
The novel's intense focus on a single traumatic experience, while psychologically authentic, can feel claustrophobic. The narrator's obsessive return to these events, while realistic, sometimes threatens to overwhelm other aspects of her life and development. Additionally, certain secondary characters, particularly the various men in the modeling world, can feel more like symbols than fully realized individuals.
The book's meditation on memory and trauma, while profound, occasionally risks becoming overly cerebral. There are moments where the analysis of experience threatens to eclipse the experience itself, though Ullmann generally maintains the balance between reflection and immediacy.
Final Assessment
Girl, 1983 is a significant achievement in contemporary literature, a novel that refuses to provide easy answers or false comfort. Ullmann has created a work that is simultaneously specific to one woman's experience and universal in its exploration of how we survive our own histories. The book's experimental structure serves its themes rather than overwhelming them, and its emotional honesty is both devastating and ultimately healing.
This is not a comfortable read, nor should it be. It is a necessary one—a reminder that literature at its best can help us understand the most difficult aspects of human experience. While the novel may not satisfy readers seeking traditional narrative pleasures, it offers something more valuable: a honest reckoning with the ways trauma shapes identity and the possibility of finding meaning in even the most painful experiences.
The book follows two temporal threads: the unnamed narrator as a sixteen-year-old girl lost in the winter streets of Paris, carrying only a scrap of paper with the address of K, a forty-four-year-old photographer, and the same woman nearly four decades later, grappling with depression, anxiety, and the resurfacing of buried memories. What emerges is not a linear story but rather a kaleidoscopic examination of how certain moments can irrevocably alter the trajectory of a life.
The Architecture of Memory and Forgetting
Ullmann's greatest achievement in Girl, 1983 lies in her masterful rendering of how memory functions—not as a reliable narrator but as a shifting, elusive presence that reveals and conceals in equal measure. The adult narrator frequently acknowledges the gaps in her recollection, the "splash of white paint where the face should be," borrowing Anne Carson's phrase to describe the untranslatable nature of certain experiences.
The fragmented structure mirrors the protagonist's fractured relationship with her past. Ullmann employs a technique of repetition and variation, circling back to certain scenes—the elevator encounter, the hotel room, the photographer's apartment—each time revealing new details or questioning previous assumptions. This approach creates an almost hypnotic rhythm that draws readers into the narrator's obsessive need to understand what happened to her.
The novel's tripartite structure, divided into sections titled "Blue," "Red," and "White," suggests both the emotional landscape of the experience and the clinical coldness with which trauma can be examined. Each color carries symbolic weight: blue for the melancholy of memory, red for passion and violence, white for the blank spaces where words fail.
The Complexities of Power and Vulnerability
At its core, Girl, 1983 is an unflinching examination of power dynamics and the ways in which youth and inexperience can be exploited. The relationship between the sixteen-year-old narrator and K is portrayed with a disturbing authenticity that avoids sensationalism while never minimizing the harm done. Ullmann presents K not as a monster but as a recognizably human figure whose actions have devastating consequences—perhaps making him more terrifying than any caricature of evil.
The novel excels in its portrayal of how the girl becomes complicit in her own exploitation, not through any fault of her own but through the complex psychology of survival and the desire to be seen as mature and sophisticated. The narrator's adult self reflects on this with a mixture of compassion and horror, understanding both the girl's vulnerability and her agency within impossible circumstances.
Particularly powerful is Ullmann's exploration of how trauma becomes internalized, how the girl begins to see herself through the eyes of her exploiters. The modeling world, with its reduction of young women to objects of consumption, becomes a metaphor for broader societal attitudes toward female sexuality and worth.
Literary Craftsmanship and Translation
Martin Aitken's translation preserves the spare, almost clinical precision of Ullmann's prose while maintaining its emotional resonance. The language is deceptively simple, often employing short, declarative sentences that accumulate power through repetition and careful placement. Ullmann has a gift for finding the exact detail that illuminates an entire emotional landscape—the blue tiles of a bathroom floor, the sound of a dog drinking water, the weight of a red woolly hat.
The novel's experimental structure, with its time shifts and repetitions, could easily become pretentious or exhausting, but Ullmann maintains perfect control. The fragmentation feels organic to the subject matter rather than imposed, and the occasional breaks into lists or fragments serve to emphasize the narrator's struggle to impose order on chaotic experience.
The integration of historical events—from the arrest of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie to Reagan's "evil empire" speech—grounds the personal narrative in larger political contexts without overwhelming the intimate story. These references serve as temporal anchors and suggest connections between personal and collective trauma.
Emotional Resonance and Psychological Depth
Where Girl, 1983 truly succeeds is in its psychological authenticity. The adult narrator's depression is rendered with devastating accuracy, from the physical sensation of "floating" above the ground to the exhaustion of maintaining a façade of normalcy. Ullmann captures the particular quality of trauma-related anxiety—the way past and present collapse into each other, how the body remembers what the mind tries to forget.
The relationship between the narrator and her mysterious "shadow-sister"—a presence that may be dissociation, creativity, or simple survival mechanism—adds another layer of complexity to the narrative. This figure represents both the narrator's attempt to protect herself and her ongoing struggle with fragmentation and identity.
The novel's exploration of mother-daughter relationships is equally nuanced. The narrator's mother emerges as both protector and inadvertent enabler, loving but ultimately unable to prevent her daughter's encounter with danger. Their phone conversations across time zones become poignant metaphors for the distances that trauma creates even within loving relationships.
Critical Considerations and Limitations
While Girl, 1983 is undeniably powerful, it is not without limitations. The experimental structure, while thematically appropriate, can occasionally feel repetitive rather than revelatory. Some readers may find the fragmentary approach frustrating, particularly those seeking narrative closure or clear resolution.
The novel's intense focus on a single traumatic experience, while psychologically authentic, can feel claustrophobic. The narrator's obsessive return to these events, while realistic, sometimes threatens to overwhelm other aspects of her life and development. Additionally, certain secondary characters, particularly the various men in the modeling world, can feel more like symbols than fully realized individuals.
The book's meditation on memory and trauma, while profound, occasionally risks becoming overly cerebral. There are moments where the analysis of experience threatens to eclipse the experience itself, though Ullmann generally maintains the balance between reflection and immediacy.
Final Assessment
Girl, 1983 is a significant achievement in contemporary literature, a novel that refuses to provide easy answers or false comfort. Ullmann has created a work that is simultaneously specific to one woman's experience and universal in its exploration of how we survive our own histories. The book's experimental structure serves its themes rather than overwhelming them, and its emotional honesty is both devastating and ultimately healing.
This is not a comfortable read, nor should it be. It is a necessary one—a reminder that literature at its best can help us understand the most difficult aspects of human experience. While the novel may not satisfy readers seeking traditional narrative pleasures, it offers something more valuable: a honest reckoning with the ways trauma shapes identity and the possibility of finding meaning in even the most painful experiences.
February 13, 2023
Nogle anmeldelser er sværere end andre at skrive. Dette er en af de svære! Jeg har lyst til at give Pige, 1983 fem stjerner. Jeg har lyst til at give den én stjerne. Jeg har lyst til at give den fem stjerner, fordi den gør mig i tvivl. Jeg har lyst til at give én stjerne fordi, jeg bliver i tvivl om den sætter mig i denne situation med vilje, og om Ullmann ved hvad hun laver..? Og det på trods af at det også er en bog om et menneske, der ikke ved hvad det laver. Okay, jeg ender på et lidt lunkent fire stjerner.
Jeg har ikke kigget på andre anmeldelser, men jeg mistænker dem for at være enten for eller imod, for det er en svær bog på mange måder. Indholdet er svært, formen er svær. Først og fremmest er formen fyldt med spring og gentagelser - frem og tilbage i tid, nutid, 1983, lidt længere tilbage, lidt længere frem, og i hvert fald i lydbogen, kan det være svært at følge med og begribe, hvor vi er. Man finder mere eller mindre ud af, at hver gang oplæseren trækker vejret, giver det mulighed for et nyt afsnit og et nyt hop. Man vænner sig til det. Eller jeg gjorde. Jeg havde det også svært med gentagelserne. Vi hører ret mange gange om tophuen og læderjakken. Vi gennemlever nogle af historierne et par gange eller fem…
Men der er også mening med galskaben, det er som en virkelighed, der langsomt bliver opbygget af små lapper af historie. Lapper og fragmenter af minder og følelser, som langsomt skaber et stor og komplekst billede af noget, der ellers kunne have fremstået for simpelt, hvis det var blevet præsenteret kronologisk og præcist fortalt første gang. En præcision der ikke engang er mulig, fordi fortælleren, Ullmann, er ærlig nok til at så tvivl om hendes egne oplevelser og evner til at formidle dem.
Og så er der indholdet. Har jeg lyst til at læse historien om en 16 årige pige, der ender med at have sex med en fotograf, der er næsten tre gang så gammel som hun er, og alt der ligger omkring det? Og om hvad der gør, at man kan være fuldstændig agensløs i eget liv, så snart nogen vifter med en smule validering? Så snart nogen ser en? Næh, nej, ellers tak. Eller okay, fordi Ullmann lukker det hele ud lidt af gangen: Om familien, om opvæksten sammen med en mor, der er anses for at være en af verdens smukkest kvinder, og om hendes fraværende far, der er lige så objektiverende, som han er langt borte. Stille og roligt, og uden at udstille nogen alt for meget. Men vi bevæger os hele tiden på kanten af en klarhed om, at den sekstenårige var en barnevoksen, der blev forladt – inklusive af hende selv.
Nej, nu ændrer jeg det til fem stjerner!!
Jeg har ikke kigget på andre anmeldelser, men jeg mistænker dem for at være enten for eller imod, for det er en svær bog på mange måder. Indholdet er svært, formen er svær. Først og fremmest er formen fyldt med spring og gentagelser - frem og tilbage i tid, nutid, 1983, lidt længere tilbage, lidt længere frem, og i hvert fald i lydbogen, kan det være svært at følge med og begribe, hvor vi er. Man finder mere eller mindre ud af, at hver gang oplæseren trækker vejret, giver det mulighed for et nyt afsnit og et nyt hop. Man vænner sig til det. Eller jeg gjorde. Jeg havde det også svært med gentagelserne. Vi hører ret mange gange om tophuen og læderjakken. Vi gennemlever nogle af historierne et par gange eller fem…
Men der er også mening med galskaben, det er som en virkelighed, der langsomt bliver opbygget af små lapper af historie. Lapper og fragmenter af minder og følelser, som langsomt skaber et stor og komplekst billede af noget, der ellers kunne have fremstået for simpelt, hvis det var blevet præsenteret kronologisk og præcist fortalt første gang. En præcision der ikke engang er mulig, fordi fortælleren, Ullmann, er ærlig nok til at så tvivl om hendes egne oplevelser og evner til at formidle dem.
Og så er der indholdet. Har jeg lyst til at læse historien om en 16 årige pige, der ender med at have sex med en fotograf, der er næsten tre gang så gammel som hun er, og alt der ligger omkring det? Og om hvad der gør, at man kan være fuldstændig agensløs i eget liv, så snart nogen vifter med en smule validering? Så snart nogen ser en? Næh, nej, ellers tak. Eller okay, fordi Ullmann lukker det hele ud lidt af gangen: Om familien, om opvæksten sammen med en mor, der er anses for at være en af verdens smukkest kvinder, og om hendes fraværende far, der er lige så objektiverende, som han er langt borte. Stille og roligt, og uden at udstille nogen alt for meget. Men vi bevæger os hele tiden på kanten af en klarhed om, at den sekstenårige var en barnevoksen, der blev forladt – inklusive af hende selv.
Nej, nu ændrer jeg det til fem stjerner!!
November 26, 2022
Starkt skildrat, undersökande, av livspåverkande händelse i tonåren. Igenkänningsfaktor i utsatthetssituationen. Tyckte mycket om att det är med ett berättande i nutid. Handlar väldigt mycket om vad man egentligen kan minnas, att återvända till en händelse som idag ses med annan förståelse, med andra linser, att det nu kan finnas ord för upplevelsen av utsatthet, som kanske snarare begravdes då det hände. En del upprepningar som känns som ett medvetet grepp, ett återvändande.
October 12, 2022
Jeg gremmes mens jeg leser.
Historien er så ufordragelig kjent, sårbar, frustrerende og trist. Det agerende raseriet som stadig kommer over meg gjør at jeg må ta pauser i lesingen; jeg skulle så gjerne kringlevridd samtlige predatorer i denne boken.
Og skrivemåten er så irriterende virkningsfull at jeg etter mye om, eller, men, for - ender med å stemple 4 stjerner. Usj.
Historien er så ufordragelig kjent, sårbar, frustrerende og trist. Det agerende raseriet som stadig kommer over meg gjør at jeg må ta pauser i lesingen; jeg skulle så gjerne kringlevridd samtlige predatorer i denne boken.
Og skrivemåten er så irriterende virkningsfull at jeg etter mye om, eller, men, for - ender med å stemple 4 stjerner. Usj.
February 26, 2022
Denne boken illustrerer hvordan et usikkert seksuelt møte i ung alder kan prege deg i lang tid. Gjorde jeg noe galt? Hvorfor skjedde det? Var det et overgrep eller ikke? Jeg tror det er mange historier som denne der ute. Vanvittig godt skrevet 🙏🏼
December 26, 2022
Jag har alltid gillat hur Linn Ullmann skriver. Hennes stil har med åren blivit ännu bättre, fulländad, briljant, inte ett ord för mycket. Mycket lyckad roman om minnets bräcklighet, depressionens fula ansikte och om att tiden (inte) läcker alla sår.
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