The Library of Babel

Intriguing book wrote by a Norwegian professor settled in Italy at the end of the 1970s.

"Romanen om Helge Hauge" ("Nube di Vernice" in the Italian edition, literally "Paint Cloud") is an interesting novel about thoughts, hopes and fears of a man working for all of his life painting the hulls of huge ships. I guess how some of the reflections expressed in this book may sound dated and too much socialist oriented, but in my opinion they are pretty well written.
Set up between Norway and Goeteborg this book left very good memories in my mind, even if I had to give it back to the friend who borrowed me.

I searched for "Romanen om Helge Hauge", because I would like to re-read it, but still without any success.
There are books like this: suddenly forgotten without any reason.
Lost novels of our times.

In fact, although having won an important international literary prize in 1985 beating works of writers such as Nadine Gordimer and Kurt Vonnegut, this novel is extremely rare to find in Italy nowadays.
I still wonder why.

Moreover, as far as I know, Truls Oera didn't write anything else after this book, at least no novels. It's just a pity considering how much talent he showed in this early work of him.