Winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize 1987

In Novel 1987, Fjord, an educated man in his mid-fourties, tells his story: he wants to be understood, to explain his own fate, a fate he takes the full responsibility for. We follow him as a journalist, student, husband, and gymnasium teacher of history. Following a flash of insight he is persuaded into “self proletarisation” by the maoist party he belongs to, and ends up working as a worker at a cardboard factory in Lillehammer. Then one day the factory closes its gates. Fjord feels like a lonely man, with no future. But is he? Once more he surrenders to fate.

The story of Fjord can be read as an existential story of a man trying to escape the absurd; from the Moment that cannot be linked to anything else, that doesn’t belong to any greater picture. In this way Fjord is led to reflect on history, and the central question becomes: Can we ever understand the times we ourselves live in?