In Stage Human, Jenny Hval writes based on her own life on stage for more than 25 years. Hval freely and inventively balances between essay and memoir, experience and thought in a book about life and art, about listener and performer, about underground, art, pop music, and politics.

In an often surprising and original way, Hval draws lines from concrete experiences with stage and compositional work to events from her own life that have influenced artistic choices and the kind of character she has been able to portray on stage. Where is the line between the private and the stage body? What does it do to the art that the artist is so clearly treated as a commodity? And who is the person on stage when that person is a “pop artist”, someone who does not play a dramatic role but is always confronted with and identified through their own body, their own name, their gender, and their own visibility?