But instead, it was his own novel “Father’s Back” that won the prestigious prize – winning among the 13 nominated novels from the Nordic language areas and Sapmi.
It has been nine years since a Norwegian author last won the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize. “A deeply probing and highly unique novel about lost time and the condition of longing,” the jury says about this year’s winning novel.
In it, Niels Fredrik Dahl pieces together his father’s life while filling in the white spaces with fiction and ends up pondering whether loneliness is inherited.
– A great honor
When Jan Kjærstad won the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize in 2001, he called it “the second-best moment” of his writing life. Jon Fosse viewed his 2015 win as “a confirmation” – which led to him winning the Nobel Prize.
Niels Fredrik Dahl is characteristically more low-key and tells NTB that receiving the prize “is a great honor,” and that the prize is held in high regard. He also calls it a “map of the finest writing in the Nordics,” which has prompted him as a reader to explore authors he might not otherwise have read.
– I believe this is true for many. I think the prize – and the nominations – contribute to expanding the conversations we have about living and working in community.
– Incredibly happy
– I was incredibly happy to be nominated and, of course, very glad to have won. But to be entirely honest, my writing life stands and falls on whether I can sit down and write or not. The prize doesn’t write new books. Nothing gets written if I don’t write, says Niels Fredrik Dahl.
He hopes that the prize will help him reach more readers.
– Of course. I could probably pretend that I don’t think about such things – but that would just be nonsense. I believe most authors write to be read. The great photographer Ansel Adams is said to have said: There are two people in every picture – the photographer and the observer. And I believe the same applies to literature: There are two people in every book – the author and the reader.
Working on the next one
Prior to the award, he had read Danish Helle Helle’s “Hafni fortæller,” Swedish poet Gunnar Harding’s “Memories from the Cities of Oblivion,” and Maria Navarro Skaranger’s “I Whistle in the Dark Wind.”
– I guessed each one of them to be winners as I read them. I have to be honest and say that I really didn’t think I would win.
Niels Fredrik Dahl reveals to NTB that he is working on his next – and seventh – novel. When asked about the theme, now that he has written about his parents in “Mother at Night” (2017) and “Father’s Back” (2023), the answer is:
– For a long time, I drank too much. Now I don’t drink at all. I’m writing about writing and about drinking. Among other things. I’m not quite sure what it will turn into. But I’m getting started, that I am.
– A star couple
When Crown Princess Mette-Marit made her comeback aboard her literature train this summer, the first stop was dedicated to Niels Fredrik Dahl and his wife and author colleague Linn Ullmann. “A star couple,” the crown princess called them, but also pointed out the risk of possible frictions.
– You have both been nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize, but now you have also won it – on your first attempt. Does that create an imbalance?
– Haha. Frictions are not new to us – it’s never a dull day with Linn, to put it that way. But the frictions have very little to do with nominations and prizes. Linn has been nominated twice for her last two novels, says Dahl, adding that he couldn’t have written “Father’s Back” without her.
– She’s my first reader and the strictest reader I’ve ever encountered. That can sometimes be a bit challenging. You ask if it creates an imbalance. I think the prerequisite for a good writing life and a good partnership is a good dose of imbalance. Or to put it another way: A tolerance for imbalance and unrest.
Portrait: Only after his parents died did Niels Fredrik Dahl get to know them properly (+)