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.
”En følsom, sprød og knivskarp registrering af en drengs univers.” Weekendavisen
“En James Dean-historie fra halvfjerdsernes Norge ... skrevet i et mesterligt neddempet sprog.” Der Spiegel
“Per Petterson er en litterær seismograf, en af den slags som ethvert samfund har brug for.” Neue Züricher Zeitung
“En stilist af guds nåde ...” Bibliotekernes lektør
Audun er 13 år gammel og skal begynde i en ny skole. Han og hans mor er lige flyttet til byen, på flugt fra en alkoholisk og voldelig far. Moren er vild med Jussi Björling og opera, mens Audun hører Jimi Hendrix og Bob Dylan – for at rense hovedet. Første dag i skolen møder han Arvid, der kommer fra en velfungerende familie, og de bliver bedste venner. I en tid hvor Vietnam-krigen sætter sine spor og folk engagerer sig politisk, finder Audun og Arvid sammen i et litteraturens fællesskab. Audun identificerer sig med Jack Londons Martin Eden og drømmer om at blive forfatter. det er okay med mig er en barsk og gribende historie om at vokse op i en forstad til Oslo i 1970’erne, fortalt i et skarpt og maskulint sprog, men den varme og lavmælte humor som kendetegner Per Petterson.
Per Petterson (f. 1952 i Oslo) har udgivet ni bøger og fik sit store internationale gennembrud med romanen ud og stjæle heste der er blevet oversat til 49 sprog og er solgt i mere end 1 million eksemplarer verden over. Per Petterson har modtaget en lang række fornemme, litterære priser for sine bøger, både i Norge og i udlandet, bl.a. Nordisk Råds Litteraturpris, Independent Foreign Fiction Prize og Impac-prisen.
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