BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA & LA BÒBILA March 17, 2016

Meeting Jo Nesbø

Biography (http://www.famousauthors.org/jo-nesbo)

A Norwegian author and crimes on the streets of Prize for Best Novel of the musician, Jo Nesbø has sold Oslo. The intelligently writ- Year 2000 for The Redbre- more than one and a half ten often violent novels ast. The Redbreast was also million copies of his novels in capture the readers with recognized by the Norwegi- Norway alone. Critically their gripping suspense till an book clubs in 2004 by acclaimed and praised for his the end. The Snowman stating it the Best Norwegi- in-depth knowledge and psy- (2010) created waves in the an Crime Novel Ever Writ- chological insights, Nesbø is UK and remained on the ten. Nesbø received inter- considered to be a leading bestseller list of the Sunday national accreditation when crime and thriller novelist in Times for more than three The Finnish Academy of Europe. His books have been consecutive months. The Crime Writers’ Special translated into more than 40 Leopard (2011) topped the Commendation awarded languages for a worldwide Sunday Times lists of hard- him for Excellence in Fo- readership. Predominantly back fiction and paperback reign Crime Writing for his famous for his Detective charts in the top ten overall novel, The Devil’s Star. In Harry crime novels, Nesbø is bestsellers. addition to winning The also the lead vocalist and Norwegian Booksellers’ songwriter of the Norwegian The Doktor Proktor is ano- Prize in 2007, The Snowman Contents: rock band Di Derre. ther series by Jo Nesbø was also awarded The created for children. The Norwegian Book Club Prize Biography 1 Jo Nesbø was born in Oslo first book of the series, 2008 for Best Novel of the 2 on March 29, 1960. Nesbø Doktor Proktor’s Fart Powder Year. Nesbø was nominated Autobiography spent his growing years in was released in 2007 fo- again for the Norwegian Molde and studied at the llowed by Doktor Proktor’s Bookseller’s Prize in 2008 Norwegian School of Econo- Fart Powder: Bubble in the for Headhunters and Doktor The next Stieg 2-4 mics where he received a Bathtub in 2008. The third Proktor’s Time Bathtub. Ano- degree in Business Adminis- book of the series, Doktor ther prestigious nomination Larsson? The Nor- tration and Economics. Before Proktor and the Destruction of linked to Nesbø’s name is wegian author is beginning a career in writing, the World. Maybe was pu- that of the esteemed Edgar no fan of the Jo Nesbø worked as freelance blished in 2010. In addition Award for Nemesis in 2010. journalist and a stockbroker. to his two famous serials, Jo thought. He published his first crime Nesbø is also an author to Nesbø currently lives in novel, The Bat Man in 1997, four stand alone novels. Oslo, Norway where he Scandinavian noir 4 the first book of the Harry pursues his passion for wri- Hole series. The novel caught Nesbø’s literary talents have ting and music. instant fame winning the Glass been acknowledged by a Key Award for best Nordic number of prestigious 4-5 crime novel. After the success awards. In 1997 he received Why are Nordic of his first novel, Nesbø fo- the Riverton Prize 1997 for detective novels so cused on writing more and Best Norwegian Crime successful? has so far produced 9 Harry Novel of the Year for his Hole novels, all of which have novel, The Bat Man. The 6 seen tremendous success novel also won the Glass Notes selling 9 million copies glo- Key Award in 1998 for Best bally. The series revolves Nordic Crime Novel of the around a tough detective, Year. He was awarded the Harry Hole, solving difficult Norwegian Booksellers’

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Autobiography The next Stieg Larsson?......

I COME FROM A FAMILY OF Lo, have we found him? Here, on on of Norway is fewer than 5 READERS AND STORYTE- the east coast of Norway, on the million people. LLERS. My mother was a librari- west side of Oslo, in a butter- “The series has been,” Nesbo an and my father used to sit in yellow apartment building across says modestly, “a slow burn.” the living room reading every from a day care called Urmafaba? Nesbo, 51, is about to begin an afternoon. And he told stories. Here, on this chilled spring mor- American tour, tied to the U.S. Long stories we had heard be- ning, which the locals insist, with release Tuesday of his latest fore, but in such a way that we typically polite standoffishness, is novel. In The Snowman, Hole wanted to hear them again. unseasonable? Have we jour- deals with the fact that his ex- When I was seven I pulled Lord of neyed so long and so patiently to love and her son have a new man the Flies off the bookshelf and at last spot the rare and precious in their lives. Simultaneously, he asked my father to read it to me. specimen that publishers speak of chases a killer who targets mo- Not so much because I had good in hushed and desperate tones? thers. The murderer’s method of taste, but because on the cover Have we found . . . the next Stieg execution is gruesome; what’s there was a picture of a pig’s Larsson? more bloodcurdling are the bloodstained head impaled on a A man opens the door. A slender snowmen he leaves as a warning. pole. My father read it and I man, with pale hair, crinkly eyes Facing into houses. Watching his thought I could have made the and weather-beaten skin, pulled prey. story more exciting myself. I had tight across his face. His artfully “Suspense is the same as humor, already begun to impress friends ripped jeans settle low on his I think,” Nesbo says. We’ve mo- my age, and some older children, hips. His voice has a lilt: His S’s ved from his apartment now, with my gruesome ghost stories. become “Sh’s,” Oslo is Oshlo. bicycled to a nearby cafe where “Yooo Nez-baugh,” he says, ex- Nesbo likes to write and drink Read the rest of the author’s tending his hand. the apple cider made in-house. autobiography at http:// Jo Nesbo. “You think that you laugh becau- jonesbo.com/jo-nesbo/ Pulp star, pop star, unlikely chil- se you’re surprised, but really, biography/, where you will dren’s author. The new Scandina- the success is that it delivers the also find his answers to these vian import of our dizzy Ameri- punch line a second before the and more questions: can dreams. reader reaches the same conclu- sion. Suspense does that, too.” What were your favorite The next big thing? “The publishing world has been books as a child? reading a lot of Scandinavian You haven’t always been In Oslo, which would look like crime fiction,” says Sonny Mehta, a writer. Which of your Ann Arbor, Mich., if you didn’t the Knopf editor who acquired previous jobs has been know better, Nesbo is a house- The Snowman. “He really is being your favorite? hold name. heralded as the new Scandinavian “He is the best crime writer,” Who (or what) inspired writer.” the clerk at Grensen Libris bo- you to create the charac- Mehta knows something about okstore says proudly, skimming ter of Harry Hole? Scandinavian writers. He was the her fingers over the rainbow of editor responsible for the Ameri- Did you always want to colorful spines on the Nesbo canization of another Nordic be a writer when you shelf. scribe, a dragon-tattooed one were younger? “Harry Hole eats here,” says a named Stieg whose posthumous Who are your favorite customer at Schroder restaurant, trilogy about a Swedish cyber- authors? an Oslo standard, a classic cod- punk finally upended The Da Vinci How did you start off and-potatoes sort of place. Code as the book everyone reads writing? Harry Hole. The alcoholic hero on planes. Do you and your charac- of Jo Nesbo’s crime novels. You see the similarities: Scandi- ter Harry Hole have a lot (Hole is fictional; his favorite navia. Literary crime fiction. The in common? restaurant is real.) The dyspeptic Snowman is set against the back- How does writing differ detective who has trudged, drop of George W. Bush’s presi- creatively from your world-weary, through eight batt- dency, and so Nesbo and Larsson music? les with sadistic criminals in a also share a propensity for politi- cold climate. In Norway the bo- How important is it that cal commentary. In London, whe- oks have sold about 2 million your readers can identify re The Snowman has become a copies. This is more impressive with your characters? bestseller, bookstores lump Nes- when you consider the populati-  bo’s novels with

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...... The Norwegian author is no fan of the thought.

Larsson’s, label the whole lot references, watch the same mo- He got a degree in economics “Scandi-crime,” and lure buyers vies.” He might be particularly instead, became a stockbroker by by affixing deceptive little stickers attuned to this — his father was day. He’d written songs for fri- to Nesbo’s covers: Read this if raised in New York by immigrant ends’ bands in his youth (“I even you like STIEG LARSSON. parents who later moved back — wrote for a Christian band!” he Everyone really, really hopes but Norwegians “are all beco- says delightedly. “I love Jesus, they’ve found the next big thing. ming Americans. Paris Hilton is okay!”), so, by night, he decided famous in Norway for no other to form his own group with his Or the guy who was there reason than she is an American brother, Knut. Di Derre became first? star. When the driving conditions an unlikely pop success, perfor- are bad in Chicago, we see it on ming well on the European Which Nesbo, naturally, finds Norwegian television.” charts. You can see some of irritating. It’s frustrating that Has he hit on the secret of the their performances on YouTube. someone would label you “next” great Scandi-crime boom? The They’ll remind you of A-Ha. when your first books were pu- books are foreign, but only fo- It was during his touring days blished years before the works reign enough to intrigue, not to that a friend at a publishing house you are supposed to be succee- frighten. Even when an American contacted him: With the success ding. reader doesn’t understand what he’d had with lyrics, perhaps he “The idea that Scandinavian cri- Mikael Blomkvist or Harry Hole might want to try his hand at me writers have something in is ordering for lunch, they still another form of writing? Nesbo common is a myth,” he says. understand the concept of going gave himself five weeks to write “The biggest thing they have in into a cafe. It’s America with a novel, choosing the crime gen- common is that they are from monaphthongal vowels, which re because he liked the structu- Norway, Sweden or Denmark.” make the books seem like crime re. He ended up with Harry Ho- His literary heroes growing up in novels for eggheads. le. the midsize town of Molde The trouble is that what made “I found it quite easy,” he says. weren’t necessarily Scandinavian, Larsson’s novels so successful “In crime, you have this intimate weren’t even crime writers. He was that their success could conversation with the reader,” loved Ray Bradbury. He loved never have been predicted. Billys both obeying the laws of the Jim Thompson, who elevated Pan Pizzas and midnight suns genre. noir to art, who wrote in his were novel concepts when Lars- His apartment is littered with own bleak climate of Oklahoma. son wrote about them. But now remnants of these former lives: a Of the Larsson comparison: “I that we know to look out for keyboard and guitar set up in a don’t really like it.” politically inclined Scandinavian corner (he still performs 50 or But the fact is that Nesbo has crime writers, isn’t it more likely 60 gigs a year) and an indoor already had three Harry Hole that the next Larsson— the next rock-climbing wall snaking up the books printed in the United Sta- writer whose subject matter and side of his office, a shrine to tes with another publisher — style will inflame the entire re- continued athleticism. The Redbreast, The Devil’s Star and ading world — will be a Japanese A few years ago, he took up the Nemesis — and none of them satirist or a nun from Malawi unlikeliest of projects when he became big hits. It’s possible that who writes romances on the began penning a children’s series The Snowman is simply a better side? about an absentminded professor novel. When it was published in named Doktor Proktor. “It was Norway in 2008, it won the Or just his own man? really for the worst reason,” he Norwegian Book Club Prize for says. He has a daughter, who is best novel of the year. But it’s The real misfortune of comparing now 11 (he and the girl’s mother more likely that this book is gar- Nesbo to Larsson (or Henning are not married), and he thought nering so much attention becau- Mankell, whom Larsson himself it would be fun to write down se it’s the first of Nesbo’s to was originally compared to) is some of the bedtime stories they come to the States since the that Nesbo is interesting on his made up together. “When you’re Larssonization of American bo- own. an established name, you know okstores. He began as an athlete. In his that a children’s book will have a “Our countries are so closely youth, he played for Norway’s pretty good chance of getting linked, culturally,” he says of premier club soccer team; picked up. Like Madonna. It’s not the U.S. embrace of Scandinavian everyone said he would go pro, that I had this great idea.” literature. “We have the same but then he blew out his knee at He pauses, considering some- 19. thing. 

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Scandinavian noir Why are......

“Actually, in my case, it was a Scandinavian noir or Scandi- THE neat streets of Oslo are not great idea.” navian crime fiction, also ca- a natural setting for crime fiction. lled Nordic noir, is a genre Nor, with its cows and country Coming into his own comprising crime fiction written smells, is the flat farming land of in Scandinavia with certain com- Sweden's southern tip. And A phone call. Nesbo pauses his mon characteristics, typically in a Reykjavik, Iceland's capital, is cider-drinking to answer. It was, realistic style with a dark, mo- now associated more with finan- he explains later, a Norwegian rally complex mood. According cial misjudgment than gruesome reality show. The host moves in to one critic, "Nordic crime murder. Yet in the past decade with a different Norwegian cele- fiction carries a more respecta- Nordic crime writers have un- brity every week; the producers ble cachet... than similar genre leashed a wave of detective fic- want to know if she can move in fiction produced in Britain or the tion that is right up there with with Nesbo next. He declines. US". Language, heroes and set- the work of Dashiell Hammett, It’s a typical request as of late. tings are three commonalities in Patricia Highsmith, Elmore Leo- It’s one thing to be famous in a the genre, which features plain, nard and the other crime greats. country so intimate that morning direct writing style without me- Nordic crime today is a publis- walkers can dawdle on the lawn taphor. hing phenomenon. Stieg Lars- of the Oslo palace that houses The novels are often of the poli- son's Millennium trilogy alone has King Harald V. It’s another to go ce procedural subgenre, focusing sold 27m copies, its publishers' global. For years, Nesbo turned on the monotonous, day-to-day latest figures show, in over 40 down bids to option his books work of police, though not countries. The release this for the movies. Film is such a always involving the simultaneous month in Britain and America of definitive medium, he says. “I’d investigation of several crimes. “The Girl with the Dragon Tat- rather have 1,000 different Examples include The Girl with the too”, the film of the first Larsson Harrys in the mind of my rea- Dragon Tattoo and its sequels by book, will only boost sales. ders” than one chosen by a pro- Stieg Larsson, and Henning duction company. Recently, Mankell's Kurt Wallander detec- The transfer to the screen of his though, he’s agreed to sell the tive series. sprawling epic (the author died rights for The Snowman to suddenly in 2004 just as the trilo- Working Title. Common features gy was being edited and transla- He’s been asked to write a new ted) will cement the Nordics' Doktor Proktor installment, and Some critics attribute the genre's renown. The more unruly sub- he’s working on developing a success to a distinctive and appe- plots have been eliminated, lea- television series — the storybo- aling style, "realistic, simple and ving the hero, a middle-aged ards cover one wall of his dining precise…and stripped of unne- financial journalist named Mikael area — though he won’t say cessary words”. Their protago- Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), and what it’s about. nists are typically detectives an emotionally damaged compu- When told that about the Lon- worn down by cares and far ter hacker, Lisbeth Salander don marketing ploy — the from simply heroic. (Noomi Rapace), at the centre of stickers with the Stieg Larsson The works also owe something every scene. The small screen prompt — he laughs. “Now that to Scandinavia's political system too has had a recent visit from the book is number one in the where the apparent equality, the Swedish police. Starting in U.K., they won’t have to use that social justice, and liberalism of 2008, British television viewers anymore.” the Nordic model is seen to have been treated to expensive Maybe, he muses, someone can cover up dark secrets and hidden adaptations of the books of Hen- create a new sticker to slap on hatreds. Stieg Larsson's Millenni- ning Mankell, featuring Kenneth the cover of the next Scandi- um trilogy, for example, deals Branagh as Kurt Wallander. The crime sensation. “Read this,” it with misogyny and rape, while BBC series has reawakened in- will say, “if you like Jo Nesbo.” Henning Mankell's Faceless Killers terest in Mr Mankell's nine Wa- focuses on Sweden’s failure to llander books, which make up a [Source: https:// integrate its immigrant populati- large slice of his worldwide sales www.washingtonpost.com/ on. of 30m in 40 languages. lifestyle/style/jo-nesbo-the-next- stieg-larsson-the-norwegian- [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/ Larsson and Mr Mankell are the author-is-no-fan-of-the- wiki/Scandinavian_noir] best-known Nordic crime wri- thought/2011/05/03/ ters outside the region. But seve- AFdj3GhF_story.html] ral others are also beginning 

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...... Nordic detective novels so successful?

to gain recognition abroad, the best Scandinavian fiction mines according to Mr Nesbo, “brought including K.O. Dahl and Karin Fos- the seam that connects the insi- up to hide their feelings” and hold sum from Norway and Ake Ed- ders—the rich and powerful—and on to their secrets. If you are dri- wardson and Hakan Nesser of the outsiders, represented by the ving through Norway at dusk and Sweden. Iceland, a Nordic country poor, the exploited and the vulne- see a farmhouse with its lights on that is not strictly part of Scandina- rable. Larsson is a master at depic- and its doors open, do not stop, he via, boasts an award winner too. ting the relationship between busi- warns, only half jokingly. You are as Arnaldur Indridason's Silence of the ness, social hypocrisy and criminal likely to be greeted by a crime sce- Grave won the British Crime Wri- behaviour, and his heroes do not ne as a warm welcome. ters' Association Gold Dagger want to be rescued through any award in 2005. The Devil's Star by a form of conventional state interven- [Source: http:// Norwegian, Jo Nesbo, is published tion. www.economist.com/ in America this month at the same node/15660846] time as a more recent novel, The Analysing Scandinavia and its psyche Snowman, is coming out in Britain. is nothing new; Henrik Ibsen did it A previous work, Nemesis, was over a century ago. But the greatest nominated for the prestigious Ed- influence on these rising writers has gar Allan Poe crime-writing award, been Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall, a a prize generally dominated by Swedish couple. Journalists and American authors. committed Marxists, they coautho- red the ten-volume Martin Beck Three factors underpin the success series between 1965 and 1975 with of Nordic crime fiction: language, the aim of criticising the country's heroes and setting. Niclas Salo- welfare state. The central character monsson, a literary agent who is a likeable and dedicated police- represents almost all the up and man with a dry sense of humour. coming Scandinavian crime writers, But the books, which closely study reckons it is the style of the books, police procedure, feature an ense- “realistic, simple and precise…and mble of his colleagues, all believable stripped of unnecessary words”, characters drawn with the lightest that has a lot to do with it. The of touches. By turn entertaining and plain, direct writing, devoid of me- funny examinations of the day-to- taphor, suits the genre well. day work of policemen, they are also gripping and complex thrillers. The Nordic detective is often care- worn and rumpled. Mr Mankell's The quality and popularity of crime Wallander is gloomy, troubled and fiction has given Nordic novelists a ambivalent about his father. Mr prestige that authors from other Indridason's Inspector Erlendur countries do not enjoy. This, in lives alone after a failed marriage, turn, has drawn in new writers. The haunted by the death of his youn- next potential blockbuster could ger brother many years before in a well be Leif G.W. Persson's Fall of blizzard that he survived. Mr Nes- the Welfare State—though a more bo's leading man, Inspector Harry enticing title is planned for its En- Hole—often horribly drunk—is glish-language debut. First published defiant of his superiors yet loyal to in Sweden in 2002, it is written by a his favoured colleagues. professor of criminology who has been involved in many of Sweden's Most important is the setting. The high-profile crime cases and is an countries that the Nordic writers epic and ambitious tale spanning call home are prosperous and or- several decades of Swedish history. ganised, a “soft society” according to Mr Nesbo. But the protection The cold, dark climate, where offered by a cradle-to-grave welfa- doors are bolted and curtains re system hides a dark underside. drawn, provides a perfect setting As Mary Evans points out in her for crime writing. The nights are recent study, The Imagination of Evil, long, the liquor hard, the people,

BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA & LA BÒBILA

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