By Peter Wessel Zapffe
According to Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng, “Parting with Gausta” is one of the most evocative postings in favor of preserving wild, undisturbed nature that he has ever come across. Gausta is an iconic Norwegian mountain that, for Zapffe, was desecrated through the construction of roads and towers. In this elegy, written in 1969, he shows both his disdain for compromise and love for the pristine and the free.