Author: Johanne Elster Hanson

As Norwegian literature soars in popularity, Johanne Elster Hanson discovers how Britain's bold independent publishers played a key part in its success. “Literature from Norway is characterized by good stories that don’t avoid discussing topics that are difficult and important,” Margit Walsø, director of Norwegian Literature Abroad (NORLA), recently observed in an interview with Norwegian … Continue reading Thinking Independently: How Britain’s Small Presses Championed Norwegian Literature

With the onset of COVID-19, Norwegians found themselves suffering from a peculiar case of cabin fever. Cabin-owners across the nation were no longer allowed to stay at holiday houses outside their home municipality, something that led Norwegians closer to civil disobedience than they had ever ventured before. This obsessive attachment to our holiday homes is … Continue reading Pining for the fjords

In 2017, there were two Norwegian nominees for the Nordic Council Literature Prize. One was Vigdis Hjorth, who’s controversial yet acclaimed novel Arv og Miljø (recently published as Will and Testament in a brilliant translation by Charlotte Barslund) had been the most written-about book of 2016. The other nominee, some people were surprised to hear, was Henrik Nor-Hansen for … Continue reading Terminal velocity

«Et vennskap kan være blant livets viktigste hendelser», skriver Graham Greene i memoarboken Ways of Escape, «og en fluktmetode, på samme måte som det å skrive eller reise, fra hverdagslige rutiner, følelsen av mislykkethet, frykten for fremtiden.» Boken, utgitt for 40 år siden, består av tidligere utgitte selvbiografiske artikler. Én av disse omhandler Nordahl Grieg, … Continue reading “Skandinavere er fryktelig Skandinaviske” – Nordahl Griegs vennskap med Graham Greene

Norway’s capital is often voted one of the ugliest cities in Europe, but it has seldom been more charming than in Lars Saabye Christensen’s novel Echoes of the City, the first installment in an ambitious trilogy tracing the lives of ordinary people in post-war Oslo. One of Norway’s most respected novelists, Saabye Christensen has managed … Continue reading Echoes of the city

In the spring of 2019, after the ‘caliphate’ established by ISIS had finally crumbled, children of jihadists and their niqab-clad mothers filled the refugee camp in Al-Hol, among them two Norwegian-Somali sisters already well-known to the Norwegian public. Their radicalisation had been carefully documented by Åsne Seierstad in Two Sisters, her award-winning 2016 work of reportage. … Continue reading Flee. Marry. Die.

Set in 1880, this evocative novel about a Norwegian village on the brink of modernisation is the first in a trilogy drawing on local legends In 2015, Lars Mytting’s nonfiction handbook Norwegian Wood ignited in the British a love of chopping and stacking wood; his follow-up novel, The Sixteen Trees of the Somme, cemented his reputation. … Continue reading Tales from a Norwegian village

The 2020 International Dublin Literary Award would have announced its shortlist on 2 April, but has since been postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Among the many big names on the extensive longlist was Geir Gulliksen's novel Story of a Marriage, which caused a stir in Norway upon publication in 2015. Many viewed it … Continue reading Scenes from a marriage

In the last decade, Norwegians appear to have become connoisseurs of unhurried culture, beginning with the introduction of ‘slow-TV’ in 2009, when we discovered that live footage from a camera strapped to a moving train made for spellbinding television. Readers might place Jon Fosse’s latest novel The Other Name: Septology I-II in the same category of entertainment … Continue reading ‘Slow prose’ in the age of quarantining

Fredag 20. mars ble alle Storbritannias teatre beordret stengt på grunn av koronaviruset. Tapet av billettsalg samt mangelfulle krisepakker gjør at den engelske teaterindustrien går en uviss framtid i møte. Så gikk det som det måtte. Etter at England først hadde en helt annen tilnærming til den verdensomspennende koronakrisen, der de ønsket å satse på … Continue reading Teppefall i Storbritannia