Alberta and Freedom

Cora Sandel was one of the most important Scandinavian writers of the 20th century and this is the second volume in her richly acclaimed Alberta trilogy. Alberta Selmer escapes from her cold suffocating provincial life in Norway to seek out the summer riches in Paris: a city where the bohemians will never die, where there is absinthe and endless talk of Cubism. But Paris is not all she imagined: although she begins to write small pieces for newspapers and periodicals, Alberta's self-esteem is low, and her inexperience makes her prey to the casual approaches of predatory men. Relationships, when they happen, are neither easy nor happy. Feeling her talent beginning to suffer and her freedom stagnating, Alberta faces a struggle to survive. After its publication in 1931, Alberta and Freedom established itself as an immediate classic and Alberta Selmer as one of the century's great anti-heroines.