Per Petterson (born 18 July 1952 in Oslo) is a Norwegian novelist. His debut book was Aske i munnen, sand i skoa (1987), a collection of short stories. He has since published a number of novels to good reviews. To Siberia (1996), 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 (2002), is a young man's story of losing his family in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster in 1990 (Petterson himself lost his mother, father, younger brother and a niece in the disaster); it won the Brage Prize for 2000. His 2008 novel Jeg forbanner tidens elv (I Curse the River of Time) won The Nordic Council's Literature Prize for 2009, with an English translation published in 2010.
His breakthrough novel was Ut og stjæle hester (2003), which was awarded two top literary prizes in Norway – the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and the Booksellers’ Best Book of the Year Award. The 2005 English language translation, Out Stealing Horses, was awarded the 2006 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (the world's largest monetary literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English, €100,000). Out Stealing Horses was named one of the 10 best books of the year in the 9 December 2007 issue of the New York Times Book Review.
Petterson is a trained librarian. He has worked as a bookstore clerk, translator and literary critic before becoming a full-time writer. He cites Knut Hamsun and Raymond Carver among his influences.
Petterson's works have been translated into almost 50 languages.
Epilogen er en udvidet udgave af den tale forfatteren holdt i Stockholm da han modtog Nordisk Råds Litteraturpris og fortæller historien om moren der er en passioneret læser, og faren som har købt en bogreol fuld af spændende bøger han aldrig læser i, men som bliver sønnens første bibliotek og en kilde til store oplevelser.
“I disse tekster deler han rundhåndet ud af sin læsning. De store klassikere så vel som ukendte navne. De har alle på besynderlige måder krydset hans vej, eller han deres. Han formidler læserens nysgerrighed, undren og respekt for den ægte vare. Men først og fremmest formidler han læselyst… De er ukrukkede, personlige, fulde af hengivenhed.” VG, terningkast 5