Dag Solstad, a towering determine of Norwegian letters admired by literary greats around the globe, has died aged 83.
Recognized for prose combining existential despair, political topics and a droll sense of humour, Solstad gained the Norwegian critics prize for literature an unprecedented 3 times.
A perennial contender for the Nobel prize in literature, Solstad was translated into Japanese by Haruki Murakami, and US writer Lydia Davis taught herself Norwegian by studying his 400-page “Telemark novel” (full title: The Insoluble Epic Ingredient in Telemark within the Years 1592–1896).
Karl Ove Knausgård admired his “old school magnificence”; Per Petterson referred to as him “Norway’s bravest, most clever novelist”. In an essay for the Paris Review, Damion Searls likened Solstad to the John Lennon of Norwegian letters: “the experimentalist, the concepts man.”
Born within the Sandefjord municipality in south-eastern Norway in 1941, Solstad started his writing profession as a journalist for an area newspaper, earlier than taking on brief fiction aged 23.
A former member of the Maoist Communist celebration of Norway, he described himself in recent times as a “political amateur”, but in addition said on his eightieth birthday that he wish to be remembered as a communist.
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Politics infused a few of his prose, equivalent to 2006’s Armand V, a couple of diplomat rising by way of the ranks of the Norwegian Overseas Workplace and acquiescing with US coverage.
The core considerations of his 18 novels, tales, performs and essays, nonetheless, have been extra private, often that includes tough father-son relationships. In a Guardian review, British author Geoff Dyer likened his characters as dwelling “as Philip Larkin might need accomplished if he’d received a job in Telemark as a substitute of Hull”.
With crime author Jon Michelet, Solstad additionally wrote 5 books about soccer’s World Cups between 1982 and 1998.
Solstad died on Friday night after a brief hospital keep, Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported. His spouse Therese Bjørneboe was with him when he died.
Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre instructed broadcaster NTB that Solstad was one of the vital important Norwegian authors of all time. “His work will proceed to interact and encourage new readers. Immediately my ideas exit to his household and family members,” he mentioned.