The Story of Dad

Jon Michelet, Karstein Bjånesøy and Knut Dale were fathers. Marte Michelet, Kjartan Brügger Bjånesøy and Hildegunn Dale have all written books about their fathers, and while we can say that their relationships were not without complications, they were at the very least close. Michelet has received a lot of attention for her Det har skjedd verre ting i utlandet [Worse Things Have Happened Abroad], while Dale’s poetry collection Ein halv dag [Half a Day] received rave reviews when it was published in 2015. Brügger Bjånesøy wrote Kjære pappa. Vi er andre menn no [Dear Dad. We Are Different Men Now] in 2019, and has just published Den siste vakten [The Final Watch], which is about his father’s last days and what it’s like to face death. In these three books, we meet three different fathers through different literary expressions.

How is it to write about your father, and to write about him after he has died? What literary choices did the authors make when writing about their fathers? Does the genre have any bearing on their closeness to the subject matter? And did these fathers know their own children? The three authors meet with Hjørdis Losnedahl, general manager of the House of Literature in Bergen, for a conversation.

The conversation will be held in Norwegian.