A Tiler's Afternoon

by Lars Gustafsson

Tom Geddes (Translator)

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Book cover for A Tiler's Afternoon

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One grey November morning a friend rang Torsten Bergman and told him of a job on a house-conversion. Torsten arrived at the empty house in his decrepit car and got to work retiling the bathroom – the tiles were there already – while he waited for someone to turn up and make it all official.

So begins this story of one day in an old man’s life: a day of work, of day-dreaming, of memories, of chance encounters (for men and women, not to mention children, burst in on his solitary tiling). And as he put away his tools that evening, there came also a discovery that might, after all, hold a clue to the elusive Meaning of Life.


In A Tiler’s Afternoon, Lars Gustafsson has written an enchanting tale, full of insight, wisdom and gentle irony, sensitively conveyed in the childlike simplicity of its telling, as the tiler’s life-story is gradually filled in from his memories. Here is a book that in short compass embraces a whole rich microcosm.

  • ISBN10 1910701947
  • ISBN13 9781910701942
  • Publish Date 13 September 2018 (first published 20 May 1993)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Vintage Publishing
  • Imprint Harvill Secker
  • Format Paperback
  • Pages 128
  • Language English