| Karl Ove Knausgård | |
|---|---|
Karl Ove Knausgård 2010 |
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| Born | December 6, 1968 Oslo, Norway |
| Occupation | Author, novelist |
| Nationality | Norwegian |
| Genres | Fiction, memoir |
Karl Ove Knausgård (born 6 December 1968) is a Norwegian author. His books have been sold in more than 200,000 copies.
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Born in Oslo, Knausgård was raised on Tromøya in Arendal and in Kristiansand, and studied arts and literature at the University of Bergen. He made his publishing debut in 1998 with the novel Out of the World, for which he was awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature. This was the first time ever a debutant had won this prize. His second novel, "A Time for Everything" (2004), won a number of awards, and was nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize, which is often considered the most prestigious literary award in the Nordic countries, as well as the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It was recently called a "strange, uneven, and marvelous book" by the New York Review of Books.[1]
In 2009, he won the Brage Prize for My Struggle - First Book, the first volume of a total of six autobiographical novels, which are being published in 2009 and 2010. The Norwegian title of the book is Min Kamp, the same as Hitler's Mein Kampf, and the six books will altogether total over 3000 pages. The books caused massive controversy when they were released, and whether Knausgård goes too far in exposing the private lives of his friends and family has been much debated in Norway. The books have nevertheless received almost universally favourably reviews and are, already before the final book is published, one of the greatest publishing phenomena in Norway ever.
In a radio-interview with his estranged ex-wife, who plays a central part in several of the Min Kamp-books, Knausgård admits that he sometimes feels that he has made a "Faustian bargain" -- by sacrificing his relationship with parts of his family and friends he has achieved enormous success. In October 2010 Knausgård's ex-wife, Tonje Aursland, presented her perspectives of involuntarily becoming a subject of her ex-husband's autobiography, in a radio documentary broadcast on NRK.[2]
The Min Kamp-books are currently being translated into a number of languages. The first and second book has already been released to great critical acclaim in Denmark.[3]
Knausgård lives in Malmö, Sweden, with his wife and their three children.