Stig Sæterbakken (born January 4, 1966) is a Norwegian author. He published his first book already at the age of 18, a collection of poems called Floating umbrellas, while still attending Lillehammer Senior High School. In 1991, Sæterbakken released his first novel, Incubus, followed by The New Testament in 1993. Aestethic Bliss (1994) summened up five years' work as an essayist.
Sæterbakken returned to prose in 1997 with the novel Siamese, which marks a significant break in his authorship. 1998 saw the release of Self-control. And in 1999 came Sauermugg. The three books, the S-trilogy, as they are often called, were published in a collected edition, summer 2000. (New and extended version, November 2007.)
In February 2001, Sæterbakken's second collection of essays, The Evil Eye was released. As with Aestethic bliss in 1994, this book also represents a summing up and a closing of a new phase in the authorship. In many ways the essays throw light on Sæterbakken's own prose over the last years, the S-trilogy in particular.
Siamese was released in Sweden, spring 2002, by Vertigo. Vertigo followed up with a translation of Sauermugg in April 2007. This edition, however, was different from the Norwegian original, in that some of the later published Sauermugg-monologues, together with left overs from the time the book was written, is included, ca. 50 pages of new material all together. Title: Sauermugg Redux. Afterword by Nikanor Teratologen. Siamese has since been translated into Danish, Czech and English.
Sæterbakkens latest books are the novels The visit, Invisible hands and Don't leave me. For The visit he was awarded Osloprisen (The Oslo-prize) 2006, while Invisible hands was nominated for both the P2-listeners novel-prize and Youth's critic-prize in 2007. The same year he was awarded the Critics' prize and Bokklubbene's Translationprize for his translation of Nikanor Teratologen's Eldreomsorgen i Øvre Kågedalen.
Sæterbakken was artistic director of The Norwegian Festival of Literature from 2006 till October 2008, when he resigned due to the controversy aroused by the invitation of David Irving to the festival in 2009.
Sæterbakken's books are released in several countries, among them Russia and USA. April 2009 Flamme Forlag released an essay by Sæterbakken, in their series of book-singles, called Yes. No. Yes.
In October 2008 Sæterbakken angrily resigned from his position as content director of the 2009 Norwegian Festival of Literature at Lillehammer. This followed the decision by the board of the festival on October 8/9 to renege an invitation to controversial author and Holocaust denier David Irving to speak at the festival. Sæterbakken was the initiator of the invitation. A media storm had erupted in Norway over Irving's appearance and several high-profile writers had denounced the initiative and called for a boycott of the festival. Even Norway's free speech organization Fritt Ord had requested that its logo be removed from the festival. Sæterbakken characterized his colleagues as "damned cowards" arguing that they were walking in lockstep.[1]