Rosapenna

Rosapenna is a novel published in 1983 by the Norwegian writer Ola Bauer.^[1] The book introduced Belfast and Northern Ireland into Norwegian literature.^[2]

The novel is the fourth in a series about the character "Jo Vendt". The first book, Bauer's debut novel Graffiti published in 1976 under the pseudonym Jo Vendt, describes the principal character's tough childhood as a dropout sent to schools for maladjusted children. The next novel, Bulk (1978), describes "Jo" as a sailor with a background from a debauched life in Oslo. Humlehjertene from 1980 is about the anarchist "Jo Vendt" who travels to Paris in 1968, falls in love with a Finnish girl, and ends up on the barricades with paving stones in his hands.^[3]

The focus in Rosapenna is the conflict in Northern Ireland,^[4] which "Jo Vendt" is covering as a journalist.^[5] Other central characters in the novel are the English soldier "Sammy Jenkins", who has a background as a poor boy from Whitechapel, and the poor IRA girl "Brigid Doherty".^[6] The novel is set in 1973. "Vendt" has been instructed to cover the conflict from a pro British point of view, and is prepared to satisfy the editor in this respect, and to write about James Joyce and Brendan Behan from the cultural side.^[6] He eventually gets in contact with IRA people in Ardoyne, an Irish Nationalist district of North Belfast, and move in with a family in the ghetto The Bone.^[3] From then on he is on a collision course with his newspaper editor.^[6] He becomes disgusted with the misrepresented reports delivered by the journalist corps, and tries to understand the underlying reasons for the conflict in Northern Ireland.^[3]

Rosapenna Street is a genuine street in the Bone area of Belfast, adjacent to Ardoyne.^[7]

An episode from Rosapenna was adapted into the audio play Vesper, produced for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation theatre Radioteatret and printed in 1987.^[8]