The White Map

Cecilie Enger has an eye for detail. For smells and atmosphere, for fashions and worn-out shoes, and for the political tensions of the time, where the issue of women and their right to vote was the focus of attention. This biographical novel flows seamlessly, with fine transitions. There is depth and definition to Enger’s narrative. She doesn’t indulge in artful literary gestures, rather presenting two extraordinary, gifted women through assured dialogue, suggestion, and dramatic description. [...] Cecilie Enger’s tale is a finely honed example of the art of the novel.

An intimate and down-to-earth portrait of two Norwegian pioneers in sexuality, commerce, and gender equality. [...] Enger conjures up the soul of Bertha Torgersen’s main character.

The White Map is a novel about daring to choose one’s own path. It’s the tale of two women who went to great lengths to add more colour to that map.

Enger is a fine, natural writer. It is commendable to highlight the story of the world’s first female shipowners – a story also about Norway, women’s history and lesbian love. That in itself makes it worth reading.

The book is interesting in its descriptions of two pioneers who defy prejudices, conventions and barriers in petty-bourgeois and puritanical Haugesund at the turn of the last century.

Such novels help to improve our understanding of women as historical actors, not passive passengers, and of the fact that there have always been different ways of living as a woman, even before our own age.