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Dag Solstad (16 July 1941 – 14 March 2025) was a Norwegian novelist, short-story writer and dramatist whose work has been translated into 20 languages.
Solstad wrote nearly 30 books and was the only author to have received the Norwegian Literary Critics' Award three times. Other awards include the Mads Wiel Nygaards Endowment in 1969, the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1989, for Roman 1987 and the Brage Prize in 2006 for Armand V.
Solstad made his debut as a novelist in 1969, with Irr! Grønt!. During the 1970s, he was a member of the Maoism Workers' Communist Party. Political themes are present in several of his works from this time, such as the 1971 novel Arild Asnes, 1970.
In his literary history from 1997, Øystein Rottem considers four distinct phases in Solstad's authorship so far. The modernist phase (1965–1971) was followed by a realistic phase (1974–1980) with political activism. His works during this phase are the novel 25. septemberplassen (1974), the propaganda play Kamerat Stalin, eller familien Nordby (1975), and the war trilogy (1977, 1978, 1980). The third phase (after 1980–1990) is regarded as a period with self apologism. In 1982 the novel Gymnaslærer Pedersens beretning om den store politiske vekkelse som har hjemsøkt vårt land, about a politically active teacher in Larvik in the early 1970s, was published; a film adaptation, Comrade Pedersen, was made by director Hans Petter Moland in 2006. Several of Solstad's later works incorporate elements of autofiction, with the author himself present as a character, or events from his youth forming part of the story.
His first marriage was to Erna Irene Asp, from 1968. From 1983 to 1990 he was married to Tone Elisabeth Melgård. In 1995 he married journalist Therese Bjørneboe, and was thus son-in-law of writer Jens Bjørneboe.
Solstad lived part-time in Berlin and part-time in the Skillebekk neighbourhood of Oslo. He died on 14 March 2025, at the age of 83.
In her PhD thesis Why So Big? A Literary Discourse Analysis of Dag Solstad's Authorship (University of Oslo, 2009), Inger Østenstad argues from different perspectives that Solstad is Norway's greatest contemporary writer, and uses a version of Dominique Maingueneau's discourse theory to analyse the components of oeuvre, reception, paratext and metatext that in Solstad's case contribute to his established greatness. Peter Handke, Karl Ove Knausgaard and Per Petterson, three contemporary writers, regard Solstad highly for his literary excellence. Literary magazine The Paris Review compared Solstad's status in Norwegian literature to Philip Roth's status in American literature and Günter Grass' status in German literature; upon his death, prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre called him one of the most significant Norwegian authors of all time.
Novels
Other writings and assessment
With fellow novelist Jon Michelet, Solstad published a book after each of the FIFA World Cups in 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994 and 1998. He was also an essayist, mainly during the 1960s and 1970s. His essays from this period are published in the collection Artikler om litteratur 1966–1981 (1981), and essays from the next decade in 14 artikler på 12 år (1993).
Awards and prizes
External links
Reviews
Categories: 1941 Births, 2025 Deaths, 20th-century Norwegian Essayists, 20th-century Norwegian Male Writers, 20th-century Norwegian Novelists, 20th-century Norwegian Short Story Writers, 21st-century Essayists, 21st-century Norwegian Male Writers, 21st-century Norwegian Novelists, 21st-century Norwegian Short Story Writers, Dobloug Prize Winners, Nordic Council Literature Prize Winners, Norwegian Critics Prize For Literature Winners, Norwegian Dramatists And Playwrights, Norwegian Male Short Story Writers, People From Sandefjord
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