Herbjørg Wassmo

Herbjørg Wassmo (born December 6, 1942 on Skogsøya , Vesterålen ) is a Norwegian writer .

Life and artistic creation

Herbjørg Wassmo at the Paris Book Fair 2011

Herbjørg Wassmo, Copenhagen 2014

Wassmo trained as a teacher and wrote as a hobby until she published her first volume of poetry, Vingeslag ("wing flap") in 1976 . Her breakthrough came in 1981 with her first novel Huset med den blinde glassveranda (“The house with the blind glass veranda”), the first volume of the so-called Torah trilogy , for which she received the Nordic Council's literary prize. She gave up her old job and began studying literature alongside writing.

Wassmo has great admiration for the Norwegian poet Knut Hamsun , but Virginia Woolf , Camilla Collett , Sigrid Undset , Amalie Skram , Russian writers and the Bible are also of great importance to them.

A few years ago Wassmo bought the old farm “Skogsheim” on the island of Hamarøy , where Knut Hamsun lived from 1911 to 1917 and of which she has intense childhood memories. In Skogsheim (German "Waldheim") she gave birth to her first child. She lived temporarily in other European cities such as Berlin and Barcelona to get inspiration there and to write on her books. Some of their protagonists such as Dina and Rut Nesset also lived temporarily in Berlin.

She is married to Bjørn Hulleberg.

Her best-known book is Dinas bok ("Dinas Book") from 1989. This first volume of the Dina trilogy was filmed under the title Dina - My Story in 2002 by Ole Bornedal . Maria Bonnevie and Gérard Depardieu play the leading roles .

Works (in German translation)

• The house with the blind glass veranda . Novel. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1984.
  • New edition as: Deutschenkind . Argument, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-88619-490-2 (= Torah trilogy, volume 1).
• The silent room . Novel. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1985.
  • New edition: Argument, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-88619-493-3 (= Torah trilogy, volume 2).
• Callous sky . Novel. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1987.
  • Reissued as: The deaf sky . Argument, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-86754-402-3 (= Torah trilogy, volume 3).
• The book of Dina . Novel. List, Munich 1992; Knaur Taschenbuch, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-426-63860-6 .
• Son of happiness . Novel. List, Munich 1994; Knaur Taschenbuch, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-426-65048-7 .
• The long way . Documentary novel from the war January 1945. List, Munich 1995; Knaur Taschenbuch, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-426-60489-2 .
• On the trip . Four stories. Luchterhand, Munich 1996; Knaur Taschenbuch, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-426-60658-5 .
• Dina's legacy . Novel. Luchterhand, Munich 1999; Knaur Taschenbuch, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-426-61681-5 .
• The seventh meeting . Novel. Luchterhand, Munich 2002; btb, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-442-73225-5 .
• The player's mistress . Novel. Droemer, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-426-19695-3 .
• Between two breaths . Novel. Droemer, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-426-19803-2 .
• Step by step . Autobiographical novel. Argument, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-86754-404-7 .

Awards and honors

• 1981: Critic praise , for Huset med the blind glass veranda
• 1983: Bokhandlerprisen , rummet for Det stumme
• 1984: Gyldendal's Documentary Book Competition
• 1987: Nordic Council Literature Prize , for Hudløs Himmel
• 1987: Award of the Norwegian Booksellers Association, for Dina
• 1997: Book Club 12 Book Prize (Denmark)
• 1998: Prix Jean-Monnet (France)
• 2004: Eeva Joenpelto Prize (Finland)
• 2006: Havmann Prize for Between Two Breaths
• 2014: Fredrikke Awards
• 2015: Jonasprisen

Web links

• Literature by and about Herbjørg Wassmo in the catalog of the German National Library
• Portrait of the author