AshehougAgency

My Struggle - vol. 1

Winner of the 2009 Brage Award
Winner of the Book of the Year 2009 Award in Morgenbladet
Winner of the 2010 P2 Listeners' Prize
Winner of the Sørlandet Literary Prize 2010 (for MY STRUGGLE 1-3)
Nominated for the 2010 Nordic Council's Literary Prize
Nominated for the 2009 Norwegian Critics' Prize
Nominated for the 2009 Youth Critics' Prize
Nominated for the 2009 Booksellers' Prize

A dizzying description of death opens Knausgård’s hugely anticipated third novel. From there it continues with the writer Karl Ove Knausgård’s struggle to master life and himself and his own literary ambitions. The novel describes the young person’s sensitivity and insecurity, as he observes and experiences the presence and considerations of other human beings with an openness which is extreme and almost self-effacing.

In MY STRUGGLE - FIRST BOOK the focus is on the main character’s relationship with his unsupportive, critical father during his childhood and youth – and his reactions when faced with the havoc his father’s surprising self-destructive turn late in life had lead to.

Knausgård’s penetrating prose and relentless self-examination seeks out the vulnerable, the embarrassing and the existentially significant in order to get as close to one person’s experience of reality as possible. MY STRUGGLE is a great literary accomplishment in more than one sense: It is published as six novels, the first three autumn 2009, the remaining three spring 2010.

Click here to download translated excerpts of MY STRUGGLE - FIRST BOOK

Praise for My Struggle - First Book:

"Complex, abundant, shocking"
(Aftenposten)

"A rare achievement. No one in his generation equals Karl Ove Knausgård's combination of talent, style, observational skills and original thinking."
(Dagens Næringsliv)

"It's a privilege to read great literature. It's an even greater joy to have the chance to write about it. And when one piece of work just keeps continuing, one book after another, spanning several years to come, well, then it's difficult for a literary critic to tame his beating heart and explain to the newspaper readers why this is so good. (...) My Struggle - First Book is an amazing novel."
(Dagsavisen)

"It's a testimony to Karl Ove Knausgård's entirely exceptional skills as a story teller that both his motif and his way of writing feel like the most natural thing in the world after a few pages - in many places also trully esthetically satisfactory."
(Dagbladet)

“Both shockingly painful and of sensationally high literary quality, [My Struggle] further illustrates what an exceptional standing Knausgård has conquered in Norwegian contemporary literature. His prose extraordinarily well crafted, the level of reflection miles above the average Norwegian novel, the writer also brings out the complexity and vulnerability of interpersonal relationships in a way very few are able to parallel. (…) I believe the first volume of My Struggle is an “instant classic” in Norwegian literature.”
(Dagbladet, commentary)

“Knausgård dares, and manages, to write about his subject as if he is the first ever to write about it. (…) The stream of memories is never stiffened by the concept of chronology or construction: If something interests him, he dwells on it, his enthusiasm rubbing off on the reader.”
(Morgenbladet)

”My Struggle is an enormously extensive, well written exposure of the writer's private life and an existensial literary experiment unparalleled in Norwegian literature (...) Knausgård writes about our society's collective repression of death. He is extraordinarily successful"
(Klassekampen)

"This novel is an extremely strong and agonizing story"
(NRK)

”Impressing (...) What really elevates the novel is Knausgård's use of autobiographical elements (...) In My Struggle - First Book, Knausgård challenges literary conventions in a way that really makes you look forward to the remaining volumes"
(Bergens Tidende)

”Extraordinary experiences for the reader (...) The first volume creates expectations and a hunger for more (...) This book is hard to put down (...) Stylistically, Knausgård is a champion in Norwegian literature"
(Fædrelandsvennen)

"This is indeed a tremendous piece of literature"
(Politiken, Denmark)

"Knausgård skilfully explores great literary themes: all those good and bad father/son relationships throughout the history of literature, from Hamlet to Kafka, and Knausgård exploits a form which calls to mind the megalomaniac novel above all, Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. The Norwegian public have fallen on their knees in awe for this ambitious author, and with good reason (…) Knausgård’s realism and literary skills are (…) raw and fearless. His depiction of the sorrow the two brothers experience after their father’s death hits the reader like a heavy punch to the stomach. It picks a fight with the greatest and most serious things in life (…) Karl Ove Knausgård’s Struggle is a triumph for the art of the novel."
(Information, Denmark)

”Grand literature and grand scandal. [MY STRUGGLE 1] didn’t get the Nordic Council’s Literary Prize, even though it most definitely deserved to … The further into this work you get – also the following volumes – the more it strikes you what a thought through and devious work this is.”
(Weekendavisen, Denmark)

“Captivating … Knausgård writes with an insisting presence and creates an deeply transgressive intimacy. It’s (absoluty banally) exciting to follow the lives being led in MY STRUGGLE 1 … I can’t wait to read more.”
(Litteraturnu.dk, Denmark)

”… a writer who in a unique way manages to breathe life into trivial matters – life’s elemantary particles. The majority of novels are competently executed. Then there are some which are really good. And finally there is a minority which are dizzying and absolutely engrossing works of art. Karl Ove Knausgård’s MY STRUGGLE is of the latter kind.”
(Göteborgsposten, Sweden on vol. 1-4)

"An illustrious book"
(Borås Tidning, Sweden)

“Knausgård’s hypnotic flow has such haunting qualities … is so consumed by its ambition to reach the core of existence through writing, that I absolutely have to read the final three parts.”
(Expressen, Sweden on vol. 1-3)

“I can’t stop, I want to stop, I can’t stop, just one more page, then I will cook dinner, just one more page …”
(Västerbottens-kuriren, Sweden)

"Let me say it this way: the only thing preventing me from going online and order My Struggle vol. 2 and 3 is that I have to finish my own book right now, and I know that I'm going to drop everything in my hands when the Knausgård package arrives. Then I will read like a madwoman. Because vol. 1 was like this: preferably no break before I had read the last word of the last meaning. (...) I was hooked. (...) By the way, just in case I didn't make myself clear: My Struggle - First Book was great."
(Bokhora.se, a Swedish blog about literature)

“Knausgård writes enormously well. He writes with intensity and presence … The author has a remarkable ability to make seemingly trivial and boring matters glow.”
(Hufvudstadsbladet, Sweden)

"A triumph of a novel. (...) Knausgård [is] a master at portraying the small 'tensions' existing in close relationships. (...) This [novel] may well be something truly great. A Norwegian Proust?"
(Vårt Land)

”An exceptional self exposing novel"
(Stavanger Aftenblad)

”Shocking to read (...) one of the most ambitious and naked endeavours in Norwegian literature (...) the most original and promising Norwegian writer of his generation"
(Adresseavisen)

”a heartbreaking and beautiful story (...) With My Struggle, Knausgård has decided to write something exceptional. It is liberating to see that he more than honours his promise (...) Nobody writes better in Norway right now"
(ABC Nyheter)

"The execution promises to be as hugely successful as the size! (...) An unparalleled work in Norwegian literature"
(Moss Avis)

First published: 2009, Oktober
Karl Ove Knausgård: Biography and bibliography

Rights sold to