Lars Saabye Christensen: Storyteller and Poet
– Norway
Novelist, poet and playwright, but above all the best known and most appreciated voice in contemporary Norwegian literature. Born in 1953, he made his debut with the collection of poems Historien om Gly (The Story of Gly), for which he also received his first award. However, it was the Beatles' novel about four boys coming of age in Norway in the 1960s, when the first wave of Beatlemania had just arrived in the country, that catapulted him into the limelight. It has been translated into more than 30 languages and has sold more than 200,000 copies in Norway alone. Probably his highest accolade to date was for his novel Half Brother, which was awarded the Nordic Council for Literature prize. Both books, as well as the novels Model and Traces of a City, have already been translated into English. The City of Oslo recently awarded him the St. Hallvard Medal for lifetime achievement.