Non-fiction genres have for centuries been an expression of Norway’s identity and mindset. The first Norwegian non-fiction authors who gradually became well-known abroad were explorers and adventurers. Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) and Roald Amundsen (1872–1928) are still remembered for their incredible polar expeditions, and the written accounts of their adventures and expeditions remain popular to this day. Thor Heyerdahl followed in the footsteps of this tradition, becoming world-famous when he led a daring and revolutionary expedition across the Pacific Ocean in 1947 on the raft named Kon-Tiki. The fantastic story of this journey, The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas (1948) became one of the twentieth century’s great international bestsellers and has been translated into over seventy languages. Today, another generation of adventure-loving authors have taken the helm, among them Cecilie Skog, Børge Ousland, Erling Kagge, and Liv Arnesen.
However, not all Norwegian non-fiction authors are explorers and adventurers. Philosopher and author Arne Næss is known as the founder of the philosophical school of deep ecology. He was one of the important minds of the environmental movement from the 1970s onward. Another Norwegian author whose work has been translated into many languages is the criminologist Nils Christie, who wrote about prisons, conflict, and crime control. Christie was part of a long-standing Norwegian tradition of communicating complex subject matter to a popular audience in comprehensible language. Another author in this tradition is the social anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen.His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and include both academic textbooks and books for a general audience. One of the younger non-fiction authors with a solid position in this tradition is the philosopher Lars Fredrik H. Svendsen. He is a professor at the University of Bergen and has published a number of books about philosophy, all of which are characterised by an outstanding narrative voice. His breakthrough work was A Philosophy of Boredom (1999), which was a bestseller and has been sold for translation into 25 different languages.
Today’s Norwegian non-fiction is characterised first and foremost by a breadth and variation in genres and themes. Books sold abroad can be about anything from philosophy and psychology to knitting and handicrafts. Of particular interest is the emergence of strong literary voices in journalistic and documentary books. In recent years, it is Åsne Seierstad who has reached the greatest number of readers in Norway and worldwide. Her documentary book The Bookseller of Kabul (2002) remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 40 weeks, and has been sold for translation into 40 languages. Her latest book, Two Sisters, has been heralded as one of the ten best Scandinavian non-fiction books since 2000.
The social anthropologist Erika Fatland is another Norwegian author who has travelled out into the world. Her first non-fiction publication was the book City of Angels, a gripping documentary account of the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004. In 2012, her book The Year without Summer was published, about Norway’s tragedy of 22 July 2011. In her recent book Sovietistan: A Journey through Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (2014), she takes the reader on a journey to countries that are unfamiliar even to the most experienced globetrotter, but of greater current relevance than ever before. In her latest book, The Border (2017), she travels along the world's longest border, more than 60,000 km encircling the vast Russian Federation. It is a fairytale-like journey lasting 259 days and passing through 14 countries.
This urge to explore subjects from a personal point of view is often combined with another strong tradition in Norwegian non-fiction: nature. An example of this is Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean by Morten Strøksnes. This is a brilliant book about nature and the sea, but also a journey to one of the most beautiful archipelagos in the world: Lofoten, in northern Norway. Moreover, the unique signature of its personal and poetic narrative voice makes the book international non-fiction at its best.
The books of author, publisher, and adventurer Erling Kagge also feature a personal approach to nature. Kagge is the first man to have completed the Three Poles Challenge on foot, reaching the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of Mount Everest. In his books, he explores phenomena such as silence, or walking, based on his own experiences. According to the New York Times, he is ‘a philosophical adventurer – or perhaps an adventurous philosopher’.
Nature has experienced a renaissance in Norwegian film, literature, visual arts, and journalism, which has also been expressed in a wave of books about nature and life in the outdoors. These books encompass a range of genres and perspectives on the relationship between human beings and nature. Some write in an extension of the Norwegian adventurer tradition, such as Lars Monsen, a Norwegian Sámi adventurer and journalist, famous for his explorations and expeditions into the harsh wilderness. Others write about the cultural history of nature, such as Henrik Svensen.He writes about the history of mountains and our fascination with great heights in his book In High Places: A Personal, Historical and Scientific Approach to the World’s Greatest Mountain Ranges (2011).
But it is not only nature that captivates us. Many wish to return to the roots of a simpler time and learn how to make things by hand, such as by knitting and crocheting. Norwegian hobby books are a large export category, some of them selling by the tens of thousands, both in Norway and abroad. Among the most well-known authors are Arne & Carlos,who knit everything from clothing to toys to Christmas tree decorations. A book that combines the ‘do-it-yourself’ approach with a strong sense for nature is Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way by Lars Mytting. The book was a huge bestseller in Norway, Germany, and the UK, and has also been translated into a number of other languages. It was awarded the 2016 British Book Industry Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year.
A more scientific approach to nature can be found in another strong trend within Norwegian non-fiction: popular science books, such as The Wonder Down Under: A User’s Guide to the Vagina by Nina Brochmann and Ellen Støkken Dahl. This book also became an international success and has now been translated into 35 languages. Your Superstar Brain: Unlocking the Secrets of the Human Mind (2016), by Kaja Nordengen, and Adventures in Memory: The Science and Secrets of Remembering and Forgetting (2016), by Hilde and Ylva Østby, are examples of other books combining objective narrative, humour, and relevance. It is not only themes relating to our own bodies that are doing well, but also themes concerning the plant and animal kingdoms, such as The Secret Life of Small Birds by Andreas Tjernshaugen, which is all about the small birds found in most European gardens.
Although Norwegian non-fiction is incredibly diverse and varied, there is one common thread: the study of reality. This is precisely the strength of non-fiction. When the best Scandinavian non-fiction books were to be announced in 2018, the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet wrote: ‘The task of non-fiction is to lift up the unknown, the hidden, and the new. It is to promote and convey knowledge and, at its best, offer us new ways to see the world.’