Karl Ove Knausgård will present a new book on Friday, “Wolves of the Forest of Eternity”.

On this occasion, he traveled from London, where he lives, to attend an event at the University of Oslo and sign books.

– Actually, I don’t know exactly when I was last in Norway, says author Karl Ove Knausgård.

Hoping to get a statement that Norway is a small pot country, or something like that, I’m trying to figure out why the world famous author hasn’t stayed in his home country for a long time .

Turns out it has to do with a global pandemic.

Inspired by “Twin Peaks”

The new book is the precursor to “Morgenstjernen” which was published last year. Knausgård says he is already working on the third book in the series.

The books are fiction and therefore differ from the “My Fight series” which gave Knausgård its international breakthrough.

The book is divided into several parts. We meet both Syvert, 20, from Sørlandet, a Russian biologist named Alevtina and her friend Vasilisa who is working on a book about a distinctive and ancient feature of Russian culture:

Faith and the hope of eternal life.

In a realistic world, mysterious things begin to happen that defy perception of what is truly real.

– I’m probably inspired by Twin Peaks. I hadn’t thought of it before, but it made an incredible impression on me. There was something mysterious going on in a realistic universe, says Knausgård.

He has already written very realistic books. On themselves, the near and the everyday.

– I have to do something else and I want to do something else. It is a movement towards something else.

Knausgård says he loves the freedom that comes with writing fiction. He thought it was nice to be able to go in and out of what is possible in reality.

“The Morning Star”, “Wolves of the Forest of Eternity” and the book he is currently working on are all about exactly that: what is real?

– We live in an image of the world. This image has not always been like this and will not always be like this. I’m interested in what reality really is for something.

Do not read reviews

Back in reality, I wonder how he, who has achieved star status as an author, relates to the reviews of his books.

“Morgenstjernen”, which was the first book in this series, received rave reviews in Norway. When the book was published in English this fall, it also received rave reviews in the United States.

The New York Times even called Knausgård one of our greatest living writers.

In the UK, things didn’t go so well. In the famous newspaper The Guardian, Knausgård was shot dead.

In other words, the critics do not agree on the success of the fiction project of the star author.

– I’m so smart that I stopped reading the review, says Knausgård.

He admits, however, that he received The Guardian’s poor review of his previous book, even though he avoided English and American newspapers when the book was published there.

– Then I can read the Norwegian newspapers, I thought. One day Dagbladet had a big picture of me, underneath it was “catastrophe”. They wrote about The Guardian reviews.

Knausgård says reading reviews takes time and effort. He also thinks it’s pointless to put effort into someone not liking what you’re doing.

– Maybe it was also a bit cowardly not to read the bad review, he adds.