Dag Solstad, a towering figure of Norwegian letters admired by literary greats around the world, has died aged 83.
Known for prose combining existential despair, political subjects and a droll sense of humour, Solstad won the Norwegian critics prize for literature an unprecedented three times.
A perennial contender for the Nobel prize in literature, Solstad was translated into Japanese by Haruki Murakami, and US author Lydia Davis taught herself Norwegian by reading his 400-page “Telemark novel” (full title: The Insoluble Epic Element in Telemark in the Years 1592–1896).
Karl Ove Knausgård admired his “old-fashioned elegance”; Per Petterson called him “Norway’s bravest, most intelligent novelist”. In an essay for the Paris Review, Damion Searls likened Solstad to the John Lennon of Norwegian letters: “the experimentalist, the ideas man.”
Born in the Sandefjord municipality in south-eastern Norway in 1941, Solstad began his writing career as a journalist for a local newspaper, before taking up short fiction aged 23.
A former member of the Maoist Communist party of Norway, he described himself in recent years as a “political amateur”, but also stated on his 80th birthday that he would like to be remembered as a communist.
Politics infused some of his prose, such as 2006’s Armand V, about a diplomat rising through the ranks of the Norwegian Foreign Office and acquiescing with US policy.
The core concerns of his 18 novels, stories, plays and essays, however, were more personal, frequently featuring difficult father-son relationships. In a Guardian review, British writer Geoff Dyer likened his characters as living “as Philip Larkin might have done if he’d got a job in Telemark instead of Hull”.
With crime writer Jon Michelet, Solstad also wrote five books about football’s World Cups between 1982 and 1998.
Solstad died on Friday evening after a short hospital stay, Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported. His wife Therese Bjørneboe was with him when he died.
Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre told broadcaster NTB that Solstad was one of the most significant Norwegian authors of all time. “His work will continue to engage and inspire new readers. Today my thoughts go out to his family and loved ones,” he said.
