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From her sickbed at the nursing home in Warsaw, Stasia tells the story of her almost ninety-year-long colorful life. Without inhibition, she tells her granddaughter Magda juicy anecdotes about falling in love, horniness, drinking, politics, and her eternal struggle against patriarchal attitudes. Both women stand outside the rest of the family – Stasia because she is too much, Magda because she is trans. But they have each other. When Polish author Sylwia Chutnik is translated into Norwegian for the first time, by Julia Wiedlocha, it is to portray a bond between two vastly different women from different generations. The novel Tyłem do kierunku jazdy (Against traffic) sets a clear contrast between the two main characters: Where Stasia is combative, shameless and defiant, Magda is worn out and disillusioned. She dreams of being the life of the party, but in everyday life she tries to avoid too much attention while simultaneously navigating her relationship with the rest of the family, dating and sex, and all the daily challenges that come with living as a trans woman in today's Poland. Sylwia Magdalena Chutnik is a Polish cultural scholar, activist and author. She has published around twenty books in Polish, including children's books, non-fiction, novels, short stories and poetry, and has won numerous awards both as an author and as an activist. Her literature circles around themes such as feminism, queer perspectives, freedom and struggle. Chutnik met the Norwegian author Amalie Kasin Lerstang for a conversation about freedom, feminism and queer lives in Poland. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Few books have faced as much resistance as Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe. The American Library Association reports that Gender Queer was the book they received the most requests to remove from libraries in 2021, 2022, and 2023, and it still ranks third for 2025. In itself, Gender Queer is not a controversial project: the book is a graphic memoir based on Kobabe's upbringing in California, from childhood into early adulthood. Maia, who has no clear concept of eir own gender, is forced into increasingly gendered patterns: at first clothes and toys, then puberty, falling in love, and sexual practice. The story follows Maia on the long search to find emself, in relation to gender expression and sexuality, but also as an adult and as an artist. Gender Queer immediately became a queer classic when it was published in 2019. Kobabe writes honestly and vulnerably about the journey to understanding eir own identity as non-binary and asexual, and has helped an entire generation of young people who are uncertain about their own gender and sexuality feel less alone. Maia Kobabe is an American illustrator, comic artist, and author, and a former librarian. Eir major work Gender Queer has won a long list of awards, and has so far been translated into 16 languages. The book has been challenged and banned from libraries across the US, something Kobabe has met with a simple response: queer youth need queer books. What role do art and literature play for young people’s search for their own identity? Nora Dåsnes is also an author, illustrator, and graphic novelist. She has explored queer identity and love herself, among other things in the comic diary Cross My Heart and Never Lie, which, like Gender Queer, has been awarded the American Stonewall Book Award. She will meet Kobabe for a conversation about identity, censorship, and drawing your own life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I knew that I was a writer, but I had to stop writing like other writers. I had to write like myself.” Elizabeth Strout published her first novel at the age of 43, after years of writing, rewriting, and searching for a voice of her own. Today, she is among the most read contemporary writers in American letters, known for her empathetic, profound portraits of people and small-town worlds that stay with the reader and won’t let go. Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton are characters embraced by readers and critics across the world. This year saw the publication of Strout’s new novel, The Things We Never Say, about yet another everyday hero: the middle-aged history teacher Artie Dam. “Every single word matters,” Strout said when she last visited the House of Literature. How does she find the right words, in the voice that is so unmistakably her own? What writers have shaped her along the way, and where does she look for inspiration? Returning to the House of Literature for an evening about her writing life, Strout will talk about how she creates her memorable characters, the importance of observation, and how she works to bring out the extraordinary in ordinary people’s lives. On stage, Strout was joined by writer and literary scholar Kristina Leganger Iversen for a conversation about reading, writing and literary courage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever since her debut in 1998, American Elizabeth Strout’s literary characters have charmed readers and critics across the world. The headstrong, unpredictable Olive Kitteridge gave Strout the Pulitzer Prize, and was adapted into an award-winning TV series, and the novels about the writer Lucy Barton, who grew up in poor and dysfunctional surroundings on the Illinois countryside, have been embraced by readers. All her books are translated into Norwegian by Hilde Rød-Larsen. In Strout’s new novel, The Things We Never Say, we meet Artie Dam – a middle-aged and respected history teacher in Massachusetts, a very ordinary man. He is the kind of person that keeps the community together, always with a kind word to the students who need it the most. But Artie feels a growing sense of loneliness and alienation, and a secret revealed makes him question even those closest to him, and what he really knows about the people in his life. This is a novel about our ability to speak truthfully to each other, and about the things we never talk about. The story is set in 2024, when Donald Trump is reelected, and Strout shows how the country’s growing polarization is lodged into the local communities, into people’s bodies, marriages, families, friendships, and into conversations in which so many things no longer can be said. It is in the quiet, everyday life that the big dramas play out in Strout’s universe. With warmth, precision and depth, she portrays the inner landscapes of ordinary people’s lives, always with a keen eye for how class conflicts and political unrest seep in and take root in them. Strout ass joined by writer Marie Aubert for a conversation at Det Norske Teatret’s main stage, about the big dramas in everyday life, about truth, solidarity, and the things we never say. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For Cal, it is a defeat to be forced to leave the big city of Edinburgh for his childhood home in the tiny island Isle of Harris. Not only has he failed to get a job despite his expensive education, even worse is having to leave the freedom of the city, where he could live out his attraction to men, something that is unthinkable at home, a place where everybody knows everybody, and his father is leading the psalms in the strict, puritan congregation. In Scottish Douglas Stuart’s new novel John of John, we meet a father and a son, and a windswept and depopulated island community. Here, the men are in charge, of the sheep farming, of the congregation and of keeping the traditional tweed weaving alive. Cal doesn’t fit into the tight mold, but is toon becomes clear that his father too, has his own secrets, about why his wife left him when Call was little, and about the real owner of their farm. Stuart’s story illuminates the islanders’ community and bigotry, their vast elbow room and their confinement. In just a few years, Douglas Stuart has established himself as one of our time’s leading chroniclers of poverty, marginalization, and queer experience. His debut novel Shuggie Bain won the prestigious Booker Prize, and his second book Young Mungo was also embraced by critics and readers alike. At the House of Literature, Stuart was joined by writer and Professor of literature Janne Stigen Drangsholt for a conversation about love and loneliness, shame and small-town moral guardians. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In conversation with Tove Gravdal about Roosevelt’s right hand, history’s middlemen and the role of diplomacy today. From Epstein files to the US and Israel’s bombing of Iran: The events of the last few months have highlighted the importance – and shortcomings – of international cooperation and diplomacy. Norway’s foreign secretary, Espen Barth Eide, is one of many who suddenly have to navigate uncharted waters. Through his many years in the service of Norwegian foreign policy, he has worked to increase dialogue and alliances between countries and people. Now, it seems someone has tossed the rule book, making small states like Norway all the more vulnerable in the face of brazen superpowers. Our current situation was far from the mind of internationally acclaimed Dutch historian Geert Mak when he set out to write about the role of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s now all but forgotten right hand. But in the process, the many parallels between the time he wrote about – the prelude to the second world war, the Spanish civil war and the rise of fascism – and our own times became increasingly apparent. In The Switchman, Mak show how the social worker Harry Hopkins, who became Roosevelt’s right hand, laid the foundation for the modern welfare state and forged a crucial alliance between the US and Europe in a time when fascism was on the rise. What can Hopkins’s story tell us about the value of middlemen, mediators and diplomats – in a time when the transatlantic alliance is threatened both from the outside and within, and when many of us have lost faith in the world of diplomacy? With titles such as The Lives of Jan Six and In Europe. Travels through the Twentieth Century, Mak has established himself as a central chronicler of modern European and American history. Barth Eide spent time as a researcher in the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and in central positions within the UN and the World Economic Forum besides his many years in Norwegian politics. In June 2026, Barth Eide joined Mak for a conversation about Hopkins and the role of diplomacy today, moderated by writer and journalist Tove Gravdal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Wergeland Lecture 2026 Andrey Kurkov is one of Ukraine’s most central cultural and literary ambassadors. With titles such as Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees, he has gained readers across the world. But when Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, he was no longer able to write fiction. Instead, he has travelled widely to talk about the reality and brutality of the war, writing essays and a journal from his daily life in the war. Already in 2022, he published Diary Of An Invasion. Growing up during the Soviet era, Kurkov discovered writers such as George Orwell and Aleksandr Solzjenitsyn through illegal copies. He has experienced first hand what a society without freedom of speech really entails, as well as the role of language and culture in establishing a national identity. Kurkov himself writes in Russian, Ukrainian and English. Part of what Putin is out do destroy is Ukraina as an independent nation, with a culture and a language of its own. In what ways is Putin appropriating history and culture in his narrative about the invasion? And how has the war – ironically – fortified both Ukraine’s and the rest of the world’s view of Ukrainian language and culture? The Wergeland lecture is an annual event. Each year, The House of Literature will invite an international voice who embodies Henrik Wergeland’s spirit in their work and writings. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oksana Zabuzhko is one of the central writers of Ukraine’s post-Soviet generation. In 1996, she caused great controversy with her debut novel, Field Work in Ukrainian Sex, in which she challenged the current view won women’s role in society and in the relationship, where she was expected to be subordinate to the man. The novel has become a work of reference for Eastern European feminism, and with its exploration of female experience, language and power, it has been compared to writers such as Jamaica Kincaid and Angela Carter. The novel portrays the destructive relationship between the writer Oksana and the sculptor Mykola, as well as the many challenges Oksana faces as a young female, Ukrainian poet. In an immediate and colloquial language, partly addressed to the reader, partly the narrator’s own stream of conciousness, Zabuzhko navigates what it means to be Ukrainian and what it means to be a woman, at a moment in time when both identities were being negotiated. Zabuzhko has published a number of award winning novels, essay collections and books of poetry, including The Museum of Abandoned Secrets and The Longest Journey. She has a PhD in philosophy, and she has taught Ukrainian literature at Harvard and the University of Pittsburgh. Author and historian Lotta Elstad has also explored history and female experience in novels such as Jeg nekter å tenke [«I refuse to think»] and the critically acclaimed Xiania series. She joined Zabuzhko for a conversation about sex, love and the view of women in Ukraine. The conversation was held in English. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Few historians can match the position of British Anthony Beevor. With his 13 historical book son recent European history, he has become one of the most respected and read writers of history. Especially his books about the Second World War, including Stalingrad and The Second World War have become modern classics. In his latest book, Beevor delves into the final days of one of history’s largest empire, the Russian Romanov dynasty. Rasputin and the Downfall of the Romanovs provides a portrait of the «mad monk» Rasputin, and explores how one man seemingly toppled an entire dynasty. Through detailed portraits of the tsar couple, their advisors and the growing revolutionary hunger of the masses, Beevor shows how a combination of political incompetence, religious fanatism and social unrest brought about the catastrophic fall of the dynasty. The Norwegian author Erika Fatland has travelled all across the former Russian empire. In award winning books like Sovietistan and The Border – A Journey Around Russia, she shows how history affects the region today. She joined Beevor for a conversation about Rasputin, the Romanovs and the fall of an empire. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No, reading novels is not a solution to our political miseries. For that organization, active resistance, and harder rhetoric is required. But we need stories. Author Siri Hustvedt said these words during a lecture at the House of Literature in 2017, in Donald Trump’s first term as president. Hustvedt is one of those writers who turns to literature as well as organized resistance faced with a harsh political reality. Together with her late husband, the author Paul Auster, she founded Writers Against Trump (today Writers For Democratic Action), a coalition that organizes town hall meetings, protests and political theatre. Hustvedt writes about the beginning of the movement in her latest book, Ghost Stories: A Memoir. Faced with Trump’s curbing of rights, and ICE’s conduct in a number of American cities, Hustvedt has been a staunch critic. Raised in Minnesota by Norwegian parents, she soon learned of her mother’s resistance to the Nazi occupation of Norway during the second world war. In a much-shared Facebook post, Hustvedt points to a parallel between the Norwegians’ resistance and today’s protests in the US: «the moral choice between accepting fascism and opposing it is the same,» she writes. What is the current situation in the US like for someone like Hustvedt, seeing ICE patrol her hometown? How are Americans responding to the continuous dismantling of their democracy and constitutional state? What is the role of the writer in critical times, and how may literature confront the material and interpersonal challenges that we are currently facing? Siri Hustvedt is among the most central writers and thinkers in the US. She has written a number of critically acclaimed novels and essay collections, including The Summer without Men, The Blazing World, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves, and A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women. At the House of Literature, she was joined by writer and journalist Karin Haugen for a conversation about a US unraveling, and about the resistance in art and community. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After 43 years together, author Siri Hustvedt loses her husband, the author Paul Auster, to an aggressive form of cancer. Now there is only Siri left, in a time in which memories, smells and words from the time before seep in. Eventually, she starts writing; about Auster's illness and his last days, about their early days together and their all-consuming love, about decades of a shared life filled with joy and laughter, with books and stories, worries and sorrow. Hustvedt's writing eventually becomes the book Ghost Stories: A Memoir. Ghost Stories is a personal account of the life of a popular and critically acclaimed author-couple, as well as an exploration of how grief and loss affect us, physiologically and mentally, in dialogue with philosophy, literary history and neuroscience. The grief from losing her husband mingles with the grief and anger over what kind of country the United States is becoming, what is lost, and what is worth fighting for. Siri Hustvedt is among the most central writers and thinkers in the US. She has written a number of critically acclaimed novels and essay collections, including The Summer without Men, The Blazing World, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves, and A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women. Writer and journalist Marte Spurkland has also written a personal account of losing her father to cancer, in the critically acclaimed Pappas runer («Dad’s Runes»). She met Hustvedt for a conversation about grief, memory and shared life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In A History of Women in 101 Objects, author Annabelle Hirsch shows us how the things around us aren’t just objects, but testimonies to a common cultural history and set of values. Hirsch shows how something as simple as a hair clip can betray power structures and how kitchen appliances have defined women’s role in society. With a playful tone and a political sharpness, A History of Women is a manifesto for women’s common history that also defies general perceptions of history’s progress and universal improvements. Annabelle Hirsch is a German-French journalist, author and translator. A History of Women is her first book and has garnered wide recognition since its publication in German in 2022. Now, she visits the House of Literature for a lecture on reading cultural histories out of the objects that surrounds us, where everyday objects can be symbols of liberation as well as subjection. After the lecture, there will be a short conversation led by author, women’s rights advocate and Director of the House of Literature, Susanne Kaluza. Kaluza has written two additional chapters for A History’s Norwegian publication and will meet Hirsch on stage for a short conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Albanian Lea Ypi has a talent for combining the personal and the political in history, exploring how we are all shaped by the societies and ideologies surrounding us. In her memoir Free. A Child and a Country at the End of History, she skillfully portrays her own childhood during the socialist regime of Enver Hoxha in the latter half of the 20th century, followed by the state’s collapse and civil war. Ordinary humans in the midst of history is also the focus in her new book, Indignity: A Life Reimagined. An unknown photopgrah of her grandmother honeymooning in Mussolini’s Italy pops up on social media, making Ypi question everything she thought she knew about her family. Was her grandmother a Nazi collaborator? Or perhaps a Communist spy? This is the beginning of a thorough examination of her grandmothers life, one that takes Ypi back to the Ottoman empire, to Greece and then Albania through alternating regimes and occupants. Lea Ypi is a professor of political theory and philosophy at the London School of Economics. Her book Free was warmly received by both critics and readers, and is so far translated into 30 languages. Writer and journalist Simen Ekern has published several books about European and Italian politics and history. He joins Ypi for a conversation about ordinary humans in the midst of history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The history of the Vikings is usually told from the top down, through powerful characters such as chiefs, commanders and royalty, with raids, looting and war at the centre of the narrative. But what about all the others? What was it like to live a normal life as farmer, a merchant, wife or child? This is the central question in a recent book by British Eleanor Barraclough, Embers of the Hands. Taking her starting point from archaeological finds in order to tell the story of ordinary people’s lives in the Viking Age, she reveals how, beneath the surface, we find stories equally dramatic to the great heroic tales of those on the top. On stage, she will be joined by her Norwegian colleague Tore Skeie. With books such as his award winning The Wolf Age: The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons, and the battle for the North Sea Empire, Skeie depicts a both vivid and brutal Viking Age rife with decisive events. Skeie’s approach to history is mainly through the upper class, such as through Saint Olaf or the nobleman Alv Erlingsson. Skeie and Barraclough write the history of the Viking Age from two different perspectives; from the bottom up and from the top down. What can these two ways of reading history learn from each other? The conversation was moderated by Carline Tromp, writer, critic and old norse philologist. The event was part of the Festival of Non-Fiction 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Arinze Ifeakandu is a literary shooting star from Nigeria, with a characteristic, lyrical prose, who has been advocated by authors such as Damon Galgut og Colm Tóibín. God’s Children Are Little Broken Things from 2022 is his literary debut, winning him several literary prizes, including the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize. In addition to the short story collection, Ifeakandu has published several shorter pieces of both fiction and non-fiction, and is currently working on his first novel.   This is Ifeakandu's reading list: * Chinua Achebe * Peter Abrahams, Mine Boy * Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers * NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names * Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun * Toni Morrison * James Baldwin * Maya Angelou * Gbenga Adesina * I.S. Jones * Ebenezer Agu * Logan February, Painted Blue with Salt Water * Gbenga Adeoba * Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo, The Tiny Things Are Heaviest * Eloghosa Osunde, Vagabonds! * Chukwuebuka Ibeh, Blessings * Gbolahan Adeola * Otosirieze Obi-Young from Open country magazine     The host in this episode is Madeleine Gedde Metz Editing and production by the House of Literature Music by Ibou Cissokho   The House of Literature’s project to promote African literature is supported by NORAD. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.