• Essential Norwegian Fiction - Gisli Sursson’s Saga by Various
  • Essential Norwegian Fiction - Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun and Sverre Lyngstad (translator)
  • Essential Norwegian Fiction - Shyness and Dignity by Dag Solstad and Sverre Lyngstad (translator)
  • Essential Norwegian Fiction - Beatles by Don Bartlett (translator) & Lars Saabye Christensen
  • Essential Norwegian Fiction - My Struggle by Don Bartlett (translator) & Karl Ove Knausgård

Essential Norwegian Fiction, recommended by Roy Jacobsen

Sagas old and new, from Gisli Sursson’s trials to Knausgård’s struggle, form the backbone of Roy Jacobsen’s selection of essential fiction from Norway, a country that is like ‘a black and not very polished diamond’, and where writers and readers seek out the human, ‘no matter how awkward, grandiose, sentimental, nostalgic, embarrassing, hyperbolic, stupid, hilarious or dangerous it may be’