Reading List
Roy Jacobsen
Norwegian Novelist and Short Story Writer
Roy Jacobsen (1954 to 2025) was a Norwegian novelist and short story writer, born in Oslo. He made his debut in 1982 with the story collection Fangeliv and became a full-time author in 1990. He won the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and the Gyldendal Prize, and he was a member of the Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature. His novel The Unseen, translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2017. He died in October 2025. His picks here are five works from Norwegian and Icelandic literature, from Gisli Sursson’s Saga to Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle.
Beatles
by Lars Saabye Christensen · 2010 · Fiction
“Lars is so typically Norwegian in his settings and so typically human in his thinking that he can be recognised by everyone whoever they think they are.” — via Interview, June 2017
My Struggle
Book 1
by Karl Ove Knausgaard · 2013 · Fiction
“The Struggle is something as rare as a well-composed, sometimes brilliantly written, and organised stream of consciousness which lasts, as you said, for 3,000 pages.” — via Interview, June 2017
Gisli Sursson’s Saga and The Saga of the People of Eyri
by Anonymous · 2003 · Classics
“Too complicated to be retold, so take my word for it: it is a flawless, beautifully written and complex mix of family saga, love story and crime novel with an unknown culprit.” — via Interview, June 2017
Growth of the Soil
by Knut Hamsun · 2007 · Classics
“As every Russian writer is rolled out of Gogol’s coat, every Norwegian one is an offspring of Hamsun, admittedly or otherwise.” — via Interview, June 2017
Shyness and Dignity
by Dag Solstad · 2006 · Fiction
“But with self-loathing and self-irony you can get away with everything. He does it in the most beautiful fashion possible.” — via Interview, June 2017
