Translated by Ursel Allenstein and Stefan Pluschkat

Ingmar Olsen is attending a conference on nuclear waste in Warsaw when an American he doesn't know approaches him and begins to ask him about his youth in Norway, about which he seems to know more. Shortly afterwards, Ingmar receives a phone call from his childhood friend Jonatan, who calls him from a container ship after almost 20 years to discuss something Ingmar has long since come to terms with. The friend and the stranger make Ingmar think about his former clique, what kept them together and what drove them apart, and with whose only female member Ebba Ingmar still has a great love affair to this day.

“Under the Paving-Stones, the Beach!” is a great and overwhelming novel about a kind of stone that lets you live through your own future in seven minutes and, well, leaves no stone unturned.