Dag Solstad’s articles can be read as diaries in the classical sense of the word, but several of the pieces in this collection are closer to memoir. Solstad writes with great energy and humour, about a dream, about the Norwegian language and about the “journey through and to my Norwegian character”. He also writes about literature, about Pessoa, Thomas Mann and Selma Lagerlöf, and about his relationship to the works of Hamsun and how a secret dream of becoming a writer was born in the 16 year old Hamsun reader Dag Solstad. In a foreword to Camus’ The Myth of Sisyfos, he goes searching for himself as a young reader and reflects on what it was about Camus, as well as Kafka, that become so important to him around the time he made his debut as a writer.

Taken together these texts form a kind of literary autobiography. From a variety of angles, Solstad approaches his own literary work and his thinking around literature. The articles are generous and sharp, passionate and combative.