Per Petterson
Per Petterson
Per Pettersonis a Norwegian novelist. His debut book was Aske i munnen, sand i skoa, a collection of short stories. He has since published a number of novels to good reviews. To Siberia, set in the Second World War, was published in English in 1998 and nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize. I kjølvannet, translated as In the Wake, is a young man's story of losing his family in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster in 1990; it won the...
NationalityNorwegian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth18 July 1952
CountryNorway
edit finished might page state truth until work
To tell you the truth, I don't edit much at all. Most times, when I have finished the first draft, that's the book. Of course, I work on the page I am on until I am happy with it. I might even say that I try to state the landscape.
anyone diminish divorced family father growing happier happiness moments mother remember taking
To say that a family is happy I think is to diminish it, taking out what is interesting. Growing up, I don't think my family was any happier or unhappier than anyone else's. My mother and father should have been divorced or never even married. On the other hand, I remember many moments of happiness.
both everybody factory grew life loved saw urban
I grew up in the city. Both my mother and father were factory workers, and I loved the life in the 'metro.' Everybody saw me as a very urban guy. And I was.
body certainly direct exposed great home influence joy literary nature physical taken threat time
I don't know if nature is a direct literary influence on my writing, but it is certainly important to me. I take great joy in writing about it. It is something I have taken with me from my childhood; the body exposed to the threat of the physical world and at the same time being at home in it.
sentences urged
I do not think of literature as something confessional or therapeutic. I make sentences in order to be precise about experiences and things. I am urged by many things and no things in particular.
both consider denmark family norwegian reaches
I do consider myself a Norwegian writer, or a Scandinavian writer, as my family tree reaches into both Denmark and Sweden. I don't think about it, of course, when I am writing.
admire best both british classic dealing literature social
I admire American literature, both contemporary and classic - 'Moby-Dick' is just about the best book in the world - and I admire British literature for its insistence on dealing with social class. It may have been an influence.
age became born break came clear complete generation music obviously politics sixties terms
I was born in 1952, so obviously the sixties were important. That's when I came of age. It was also a revolutionary period, a complete break with the generation before us in terms of culture, literature, music, and in politics, of course. 1968 was an important year; I was 16, and the world became clear to me, visible, so to say.
decided imaginary life references room
I decided if I couldn't be a writer, my life would be miserable. I had this imaginary room of references to all the books I had read, a kind of bubble, in which I lived.
Making sentences is what I do. I mean, the story will come as I write.
english hard norwegian open visible
If you're a Norwegian writer, you are not visible in the world. The door of the English language is very hard to open for a Norwegian writer.
afraid good rely shall sit wait
When you are a sentence-based writer, they have to be good. They have to be really on the spot. Because when you don't have a plot, really, what shall you rely on? Just language. And sometimes I am so afraid of writing the wrong thing, I just sit and wait for the right thing to come.
amazing changes good sounds stays stealing
When a translation is very good, it is fascinating to see how the book changes and yet stays the same. I think 'Out Stealing Horses' sounds more American for Americans than it does in Norway, and still, it is all there, everything that I wrote. It's amazing.
although both common epic good prefer quarrel reader seems slightly
There is always this quarrel about what is preferable: the straight, naturalistic, epic storytelling or the modernistic, disjointed, slightly hermetic one. To me it does not matter, as long as it's good. I like both kinds. Although the common reader seems to prefer the first, which is to be expected, and who would blame her?