AshehougAgency

Mehren, Stein

I hold your head

I hold your head
in my hands, as you hold
my heart in your affection
as everything holds and is
held by something other than itself
As the sea lifts a stone
to its strands, as the tree
holds the ripe fruit of autumn, as
the world is lifted through worlds and space
So are we both held by something and lifted
to where mystery holds mystery in its hand

(From MOT EN VERDEN AV LYS, 1963. Translation by Elizabeth Rokkan)

Author and painter Stein Mehren (b 1935) used a large part of the 1950s to study philosophy and biology in Oslo and Germany. He entered the literary scene in 1960 with the poetry collection GJENNOM STILLHETEN EN NATT.

Thanks to his numerous collections of poetry, novels, essays, paintings, articles and musical compositions, Stein Mehren has for many years been a pillar in Norway’s cultural society. His main preoccupations are philosophy and humankind. Mehren sees it as the duty of an artist to involve himself in public affairs - and also to query the function of art in what seems to be a world in which anything goes.
Nature, love, urban life, time, childhood, other people, identity, language, death, mirrors and eternity have all been recurring subjects in Mehren’s work. The search for an identity in today’s chaotic and confusing Western world, the shattering experiences of life as part of the universe, the question of whether one can really comprehend one’s own situation, one’s own person, and the problem of finding words to describe one’s experiences, are also central themes.

Since his debut in 1960, Stein Mehren has published nearly 50 books and received a number of prestigious prizes.

"Mehren can portray people as broken and destroyed without letting go of the idea of people as a mystery... There is a genuine glow in Mehren's writings, a natural authority that can only be explained with reference to unfair terms like talent and gifts" (Aftenposten)