Blue Sunset

“Hansen’s controlled, poetic prose shines brighter and brighter as Maja’s life and past come fully into view. The quiet but moving climax occurs in a gorgeous, wrenching scene set at the British Library, illuminating a series of parallel motifs and connections between herself and, surprisingly, Percy and Mary Shelley. A lush, atmospheric novella brimming with poetry, pain, and desire.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Blue Sunset streams onto the page in layers or sheets or waves, the emotional weather of the novel meeting the formations of sky, land, and sea. Sublime and inscrutable. In mourning, but alive.” —Amina Cain


“A perfect novel, Blue Sunset is the sweet spot between Elizabeth Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights and Thomas Bernhard, eerie, beautiful, contemplative.” —Camilla Grudova


“This slim novel should be read slowly because on every page there is a treasure: a strange thought that strikes like an arrow to the heart of a target, a surprising observation that nevertheless rings perfectly true, a discreet metaphor that seems to have been created for the first time. Hansen is so delicate, so singular, and so precise, that it seems as if she has only ever read the greatest poets.” —Anne Serre