The Solitaire Mystery

jostein gaarder hilde kramer sarah jane hails

Twelve-year-old Hans Thomas and his father are driving from Norway to Greece in search of Hans Thomas's mother, who left them many years before. Along the way, the boy receives a mysterious miniature book - the fantastic memoir of a sailor shipwrecked in 1842 on a strange island where a deck of cards has come to life. But what does the sailor's journey have to do with that of Hans Thomas? And what can both their journeys tell us about our own quest to understand life?

Genres fictionphilosophyfantasyyoung adultmysterynovelsmagical realismcontemporaryscandinavian literatureliterature

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1990

Literary awards

دار المنى, norwegian critics prize for childrens literature (kritikerprisen for beste barne- og ungdomsbok),

This edition

Format: 320 pages, Paperback
Published: November 11, 2003 by Farrar Straus \u0026 Giroux
ISBN: 9780374529437
ASIN: 0374529434
Language: English

Characters More characters

Hans Thomas

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Frode

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Speelkaarten

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Pa

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About the author

jostein gaarder

Jostein Gaarder is a Norwegian intellectual and author of several novels, short stories, and children's books. Gaarder often writes from the perspective of children, exploring their sense of wonder about the world. He often uses meta-fiction in his works, writing stories within stories.

Gaarder was born into a pedagogical family. His best known work is the novel Sophie's World, subtitled "A Novel about the History of Philosophy." This popular work has been translated into fifty-three languages; there are over thirty million copies in print, with three million copies sold in Germany alone.

In 1997, he established the Sophie Prize together with his wife Siri Dannevig. This prize is an international environment and development prize (USD 100,000 = 77,000 €), awarded annually. It is named after the novel.