Brian and Stefan Forever
$16.00
Additional Info
- ISBN: 9781966192190
- Size: 4.5" x 7"
- Pages: 190
- Publication Date: June 8, 2027
A tender and erotic coming of age story by poet Bjorn Rasmussen
When Brian’s mother takes in a foster child named Stefan, the two boys immediately form a bond closer than brotherhood, one in which their most taboo desires can be spoken and acted out in the bunk beds they share. They play together like animals, like they are free of the violence and judgement of the world around them.
But as they grow up, Stefan begins to dream of being a dog, wearing a suit of dog skin and meeting handlers on the internet, while Brian is still scared to hold hands on the street. Eventually, Brian is forced to face the hardest challenge of all—what do you do when your brother, your lover, the person who taught you to be yourself, goes someplace you can’t follow?
Praise
Winner of the Danish Critics Prize
“Long live reading Bjørn Rasmussen. Long live the Gay Novel.”—Politiken
“In Bjørn Rasmussen’s beautiful novel, a truth about humanity stands and trembles between the pages, as if the book lies naked and is a little cold and wants to be warmed by your hands.”—Berlingske
“A very original gay novel, but also the dog novel I didn’t know I was missing.”—Kritik
Praise for Bjorn Rassmussen
“Bjørn Rasmussen is a loner who seems fairly unaffected by literary trends and writes about whatever suits him in a deadpan and insanely charming language.”—Berlingske
“[A] truly original literary voice.” —Entropy, Best Fiction of 2019
“Rasmussen has managed to stretch the soul in the way a butcher might stretch flesh, asking us to consider the roots of our desires and the depths of our longings.”—Full Stop
“Darkly beautiful and fearless.”—Book Riot
Bjørn Rasmussen
Bjørn Rasmussen was born in 1983 and graduated from the Danish Playwright School in 2007 and from the Danish Writers’ School in 2011. He received the Montana Literary Award in 2011 for The Skin Is the Elastic Covering that Encases the Entire Body, was awarded a three-year work grant from the Danish government in 2013, and received the Kultur Bornholms Literary Award in 2014.
Books
Bjørn Rasmussen was born in 1983 and graduated from the Danish Playwright School in 2007 and from the Danish Writers’ School in 2011. He received the Montana Literary Award in 2011 for The Skin Is the Elastic Covering that Encases the Entire Body, was awarded a three-year work grant from the Danish government in 2013, and received the Kultur Bornholms Literary Award in 2014.
Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg
Sherilyn Hellberg is a writer and literary translator based in Copenhagen. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Frieze, among other places, and her translation of Jonas Eika’s After the Sun from the Danish was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in the same field from Columbia University.
Books
Sherilyn Hellberg is a writer and literary translator based in Copenhagen. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Frieze, among other places, and her translation of Jonas Eika’s After the Sun from the Danish was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in the same field from Columbia University.