thumb|Solstad during the Oslo Bokfestival, 2010

Dag Solstad (16 July 1941 – 14 March 2025) was a Norwegian novelist, short-story writer and dramatist whose work has been translated into 20 languages.

Solstad wrote nearly 30 books and was the only author to have received the Norwegian Literary Critics' Award three times. Solstad made his literary debut with Spiraler, a collection of short stories influenced by literary modernism, in 1965, and started working as a full-time writer the following year.

His first marriage was to Erna Irene Asp, from 1968. From 1983 to 1990 he was married to Tone Elisabeth Melgård. In 1995 he married journalist Therese Bjørneboe, and was thus son-in-law of writer Jens Bjørneboe.

Novels

  • Irr! Grønt! (1969) He was also an essayist, mainly during the 1960s and 1970s. His essays from this period are published in the collection (1981), and essays from the next decade in (1993). Peter Handke, Karl Ove Knausgaard and Per Petterson, three contemporary writers, regard Solstad highly for his literary excellence. Literary magazine The Paris Review compared Solstad's status in Norwegian literature to Philip Roth's status in American literature and Günter Grass' status in German literature;
  • 1969: Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, for Irr! Grønt!
  • 1982: Språklig samlings litteraturpris
  • 1999: Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, for T. Singer
  • 2006: Brage Prize, for Armand V. Fotnoter til en uutgravd roman

References

  • Dag Solstad's biography and bibliography at Aschehoug Agency
  • Dag Solstad at Forlaget Oktober
  • Solstad bibliography: literature by and on Dag Solstad (National Library of Norway)

Reviews

  • Dag Solstad, The Art of Fiction No. 230 – interview with Ane Farsethås in The Paris Review, Issue 217, Summer 2016
  • Marginal Men Take Center Stage in the Novels of Dag Solstad – James Wood in The New Yorker, 15 October 2018. Published in the print edition of the 22 October 2018 issue, with the headline "Not Important."
  • Novel 11, book18 – Paul Binding in The Independent, 12 December 2008
  • Shyness and Dignity – Boyd Tonkin in The Independent, 28 November 2006