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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I remember a lot of dreams. Sometimes they are hard to distinguish from what has really happened. That is not so terrible. It is the same with books.
I rely heavily on rhythm when I write. You should tap your foot when you read it, all the way through.
A lot can change because you are embarrassed by something.
I write about families. That is who we are.
...when it came to dying, I was scared. Not of being dead, that I could not comprehend, to be nothing was impossible to grasp and therefore really nothing to be scared of, but the dying itself I could comprehend, the very instant when you know that now comes what you have always feared, and you suddenly realise that every chance of being the person you really wanted to be, is gone for ever, and the one you were, is the one those around you will remember.
Time is important to me now, I tell myself.Not that it should pass quickly or slowly, but only be time, be something I live inside and fill with physical things and activities that I can divide it up by. so that it grows distict to me and does not vanish when I am not looking.
If I just concentrate I can walk into memory's store and find the right shelf with the right film and disappear into it....