Refusing To Condescend: Johanna Skibsrud and ‘Difficult’ Literature BY MARTHA SCHABAS

John Banville said a few years ago that he thinks the novel as a form has become something tired and childish. I hope he’s since read Johanna Skibsrud. One of the most exciting qualities in her writing is that equally, in form and content, it refuses to condescend. It is intellectually satisfying in a way that feels as riveting as coming across bits of staggeringly articulate theory—you’re amazed that such elusive phenomena and slippery feeling has been expressed so actively and totally.

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Book Review by Imogen Robinson (justaplatform.com): Quartet for the End of Time

Johanna Skibsrud’s second novel, Quartet for the End Of Time, can be described as nothing less than monumental in the sheer breadth of events and subject matter it strives to cover. And if the reader is prepared to put in some work to keep track of the seemingly timeless interwoven, jarring and juxtaposing lives it covers then it will, at the end of the time it takes the reader to complete it, leave nothing less than a lasting impression.

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Toronto Quarterly: Quartet for the End of Time (an interview)

Johanna Skibsrud – I would say that the novel is a meditation on history and responsibility. I didn’t write it to get any particular message across—more the opposite. I wrote it for the same reason that I write anything. Because life is one great big puzzle. 

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A new novel by Giller Prize winning author Johanna Skibsrud

Quartet for the End of Time: A new novel by Giller Prize winning author Johanna Skibsrud

-by Susan Paddon

It feels somehow right that Johanna Skibsrud’s first interview for her new novel, Quartet for the End of Time, is for The Inverness Oran and takes place in her home in St. Joseph du Moine. 

Writing a First Novel | Edited By Karen Stevens | Macmillan

In this inspiring collection of essays, a range of award-winning, established and newly published writers offer highly personal accounts of their creative processes. Authors reveal the anxieties, considerations and discoveries that shaped their own first novels, arming new writers with practical advice, focus and inspiration. The books final section presents the perspectives of an agent, a publisher and an author on the business of publishing a first novel.