Two Norwegian authors, Per Petterson and Åsne Seierstad, are hoping to snare more readers in the US, by heading off on tour to promote English translations of their latest books.
Per Petterson, who won readers with his international breakthrough Out Stealing Horses, is spending this week and next traveling around the US to drum up interest in his latest work Jeg nekter, translated into I Refuse in English. That may not be difficult, given the glowing reviews the book about parents and children received both when it came out in Norway three years ago and later abroad.
The novel was a best-seller for publishing firm Forlaget Oktober and also won the Norwegian booksellers’ prize. It’s been sold to 20 countries and also received rave reviews in Great Britain, France and Germany. Now it will land in bookstores in the US, with Petterson promoting it at the Seattle Public Library and in Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles this week. Next week he’ll be in Minneapolis and New York.
Also setting off on the book tour circuit this month is Åsne Seierstad, who won international fame with her first-hand if controversial account of her stay with a bookseller in Kabul. Now her book about Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik (En av oss, One of Us) has been translated into English and is due for release in the US on April 21. She’ll be launching it in New York for publishing firm Kagge Forlag.
newsinenglish.no staff
