Karl Ove Knausgård (; born 6 December 1968) is a Norwegian author. He became known worldwide for a series of six autobiographical novels titled My Struggle (Min Kamp). The Wall Street Journal has described him as "one of the 21st century's greatest literary sensations".
Since the completion of the My Struggle series in 2011, he has published an autobiographical series entitled the Seasons Quartet, a critical work on the art of Edvard Munch, and a novel series beginning with The Morning Star.
Knausgård has won the 2009 Brage Prize, 2017 Jerusalem Prize, and 2019 Swedish Academy Nordic Prize.
Early life Born in Oslo, Norway, Knausgård was raised on Tromøya in Arendal and in Kristiansand, and studied arts and literature at the University of Bergen. He then held various jobs, including teaching high school in northern Norway, selling cassettes, working in a psychiatric hospital and on an oil platform, while trying to become a writer. He eventually published his first novel in 1998.Evan Hughes, Karl Ove Knausgaard interview, The New Republic, 8 April 2014.
Literary career Debut and follow-up Knausgård made his publishing debut in 1998 with the novel Out of the World, for which he was awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature. This was the first time in the award's history that a debut novel had won.Hermione Hoby, "Karl Ove Knausgaard: Norway's Proust and a life laid painfully bare," The Guardian, 1 March 2014.
His second novel, A Time for Everything (2004), partly retells certain parts of the Bible as well as the history of angels on earth. The book won a number of awards and was nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize. It was also nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award. It was called a "strange, uneven, and marvellous book" by The New York Review of Books.Ingrid D. Rowland, "The Primordial Struggle," The New York Review of Books, 14 October 2010.
The Min Kamp books
While Knausgård's two first books were well received, it was the six-volume Min Kamp (My Struggle) series of autobiographical novels that made Knausgård a household name in Norway. Published from 2009 to 2011 and totalling over 3,500 pages, the books were hugely successful and also caused much controversy.James Wood, "Total Recall". The New Yorker, 13 August 2012. The controversy was caused partly because the Norwegian title of the book, Min Kamp, is the same as the Norwegian title of Hitler's Mein Kampf, and partly because some have suggested Knausgård goes too far in exposing the private lives of his friends and family—including his father, ex-wife, uncle, and grandmother. The books have nevertheless received almost universally favourable reviews, at least the first two volumes. In a country of five million people, the Min Kamp series has sold over 450,000 copies.
The Min Kamp series is translated into numerous languages. The books were published to great critical acclaim in Denmark, Sweden, and several other countries. All six have been translated into English by Don Bartlett for publication by Archipelago Books (US) and Harvill Secker (UK), and have been retitled in Britain as A Death in the Family, A Man in Love, Boyhood Island, Dancing in the Dark, Some Rain Must Fall, and The End (The End translated by Bartlett and Martin Aitken). The audiobooks of the English translations were recorded by Edoardo Ballerini.
In a long and largely positive review of the first Min Kamp books, James Wood of The New Yorker wrote that "There is something ceaselessly compelling about Knausgård's book: even when I was bored, I was interested."
2013–2019: Essays and the Seasons Quartet
Knausgård served as a consultant to the new Norwegian translation of the Bible. In 2013, he published a collection of essays, Sjelens Amerika: tekster 1996–2013 (""), and in 2013 he adapted his novel Out of the World into a screenplay.Nina Berglund (4 September 2013): "Knausgaard cancels all appearances", Views and News from Norway. Retrieved 7 November 2013.
Between 2015 and 2016, Knausgård published his Seasons Quartet, a series of four books titled Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer, that like the My Struggle-series are also autobiographical in nature, consisting of diary excerpts, letters, and other personal materials.
Knausgård has written works devoted to the visual arts. He co-authored Anselm Kiefer: Transition from Cool to Warm, a book in 2018 on the German artist Anselm Kiefer with James Lawrence. In 2019, Knausgård published a monograph on the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, and his interview about Munch also appeared as a highlight of the British Museum's 2019 exhibition catalogue, Edvard Munch: Love and Angst, by curator Giulia Bartrum.
In October 2019 Knausgård became the sixth writer chosen to contribute to the Future Library project. His essay collection In the Land of the Cyclops was published in Norwegian in 2018 and in English in January 2021.
2020–2025: Novel series In September 2020 Knausgård's novel Morgenstjernen ("The Morning Star"), a story about a number of peoples' everyday life in southern Norway while a mysteriously bright star appears in the sky, was published to critical acclaim in Norway.Karl Ove Knausgårds nya roman hyllas i Norge Dagens Nyheter 18 September 2020 (in Swedish) Danish and Swedish translations were published a few months later to great critical acclaim.Strålende mottagelse av Knausgårds Morgenstjernen i Danmark Oktober forlag (in Norwegian)Hyllas av kritikerna: "Knausgårds nya roman är ett storverk" Norstedts (in Swedish) It was sold in advance to fifteen countries. In 2021, the novel was listed by The New York Times as one of the notable books of the year.
In 2021, Ulvene fra evighetens skog (English translation The Wolves of Eternity, 2023), a sequel to Morgenstjernen mainly set in the 1980s that portrays two estranged half-siblings in Norway and the Soviet Union, was published in Norway.Ulvene fra evighetens skog Forlaget Oktober The longest novel in the series and dealing with various philosophical questions, it prompted critical comparison to a 19th-century Russian novel. A third book in the series titled Det tredje riket (English translation The Third Realm, 2024) was published in 2022,Det tredje riket Forlaget Oktober followed by Nattskolen (English translation The School of Night, 2026), in 2023 and Arendal in 2024. The sixth novel Jeg var lenge død, that outright deals with the supernatural implied in the previous novels, was published in Norwegian on 31 October 2025. In a radio interview published the same day, Knausgård revealed that he is writing a seventh book, which will be the final book in the series.
Critical reception Following the publication of Min Kamp, Knausgård has been described as "one of the 21st century's greatest literary sensations" by the Wall Street Journal. Some consider him the greatest Norwegian writer since playwright Henrik Ibsen. His deliberately prolix and minutely detailed style drew comparison to that of French novelist Marcel Proust and his seven-volume novel In Search of Lost Time.
Knausgård's 2020 novel The Morning Star was a critical success in Scandinavia. While reviewers of the English translation of the novel were more ambivalent, Knausgård was acknowledged as "one of the finest writers alive" by Dwight Garner in The New York Times and "a writer of supreme interest" by Charles Arrowsmith in the Los Angeles Times.The Morning Star Complete reviews.com
Editing and publishing career Between 1999 and 2002 Knausgård was co-editor of Vagant, a Norwegian literary magazine founded in 1988. In 2010, he founded a small publishing house, Pelikanen (the Pelican), with his brother Yngve Knausgård and Asbjørn Jensen.
Personal life Knausgård is currently married to his third wife, Michal Knausgård (née Shavit). She is the publishing director of Fern PressFern Press in London, and previously worked as editorial director of Harvill Secker, where she edited and published Knausgård's novels. Shavit and Knausgård have one child, and live together in London, along with their children from prior marriages.
Knausgård lived in Österlen, Sweden, with his second wife, the writer Linda Boström Knausgård, and their four children until November 2016 when he and his wife separated. He now divides his time between London and Sweden.
In a radio interview with his estranged first wife, Tonje Aursland, who plays a part in several of the Min Kamp books, Knausgård admitted that he sometimes feels that he has made a "Faustian bargain"—that he has achieved huge success by sacrificing his relationships with friends and members of his family. In October 2010, Aursland presented her perspective on involuntarily becoming a subject of her ex-husband's autobiography in a radio documentary broadcast on NRK. Knausgård's uncle, who is represented as Gunnar in the Min Kamp books, has been highly critical of the whole project in the Norwegian press.Eivind Kristensen, "«Onkel Gunnar» tar knallhardt oppgjør med Knausgård"(in Norwegian), Aftenposten, 17 November 2011.
Bibliography +Original publicationEnglish publication Year Original title Publisher Genre Translated title Year Translator Publisher 1998 Ute av verden Tiden Norsk Forlag() novel Out of the World 2028 Martin Aitken Archipelago Books() 2004 En tid for alt Forlaget Oktober() novel A Time for Everything 2009 James Anderson Archipelago Books() 2009–2011 Min Kamp Forlaget Oktober autobiographical novel My Struggle 2012–2018 Don Bartlett and Martin Aitken Penguin Books 2013 Sjelens Amerika Forlaget Oktober() essays 2014 Nakker essays and photography Necks 2015 Thomas Wagstrom Max Ström() 2015 Årstid-encyklopedien:Om høsten () autobiographicalquartet Seasonal Encyclopedia:Autumn 2017 Penguin Books() 2015 Om vinteren () Winter 2018 Penguin Books() 2016 Om våren () Spring 2018 Penguin Books() 2016 Om sommeren () Summer 2018 Penguin Books() 2015 Hjemme – Borte () nonfiction, written with Fredrik Ekelund Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game 2017 Don Bartlett and Sean Kinsella Penguin Books() 2018 Anselm Kiefer: Transition from Cool to Warm art writing Anselm Kiefer: Transition from Cool to Warm 2018 James Lawrence Rizzoli International Publications() 2019 So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch art writing So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch 2019 Penguin Books() 2019 Fuglene under himmelen short story The Birds under the Sky 2019 2020 Morgenstjernen Forlaget Oktober() novel The Morning Star 2021 Martin Aitken Penguin Books() 2021 Ulvene fra evighetens skog Forlaget Oktober() novel The Wolves of Eternity 2023 Martin Aitken Penguin Books() 2022 Det tredje riket Forlaget Oktober() novel The Third Realm 2024 Martin Aitken Penguin Books() 2023 Nattskolen Forlaget Oktober() novel The School of Night 2026 Martin Aitken Penguin Books() 2024 Arendal Forlaget Oktober() novel 2025 Jeg var lenge død Forlaget Oktober() novel
Articles in English 2015: Title in the online table of contents is "Anders Breivik's inexplicable crime". 2016: Title in the online table of contents is "At the Writing Academy". 2020: Title in the online edition is "Into the Black Forest with the Greatest Living Artist". 2025: 2025:
Awards and nominations
Nominations Nominated for the 2004 Nordic Council's Literature Prize
See full list of Nominations of My Struggle
Awards 1998: Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature 2009: Brage Prize 2009: NRK P2 Listeners' Prize 2010: Book of the Year Prize in Morgenbladet 2015: Premio Malaparte 2015: Welt-Literaturpreis 2017: Jerusalem Prize 2019: Swedish Academy Nordic Prize 2023: Lenin Award 2025: Aschehoug Prize 2025: Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature
References
External links
Karl Ove Knausgård at Aschehoug Agency Karl Ove Knausgård at Forlaget Oktober Karl Ove Knausgård Proust Questionnaire at Portobello Books Karl Ove Knausgård Bibliography
(Audio) (Audio)