When Norway Fails Us Poor People

Being poor in Norway in 2025 is not only financially difficult – it can also be socially and morally taboo. In her book Vi fattigfolk [We Poor People], author and social worker Anna-Sabina Soggiu addresses how rarely financial hardship is discussed, even in a country described as one of the richest in the world. She recounts her childhood in a municipal housing block in Tøyen, the shame of lacking so much compared to others, and how society fails those living below the poverty line.

In conversation with Marte Michelet, Soggiu examines what happens to human dignity when economic differences are made invisible or interpreted as individual failure: Who is to blame when help fails to materialise? What does the system do to us, and how can we talk honestly about pride, shame and the right to be seen?

The conversation will be held in Norwegian.