Trude Marstein

Acute powers of observation. Great linguistic precision. Multi-award winner.

Trude Marstein (b. 1973) grew up in Tønsberg and now lives in Oslo. She studied pedagogy, psychology and literature at the University of Oslo. Her writing really got going when she took writing studies at Telemark University College in Bø. In 1998, Trude Marstein was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas Debutant Prize for the prose collection Strong Hunger, Sudden Nausea. She later published novels, essays and a children’s book, and has received a number of awards for her writing. In her books, she succeeds in revealing the gap between the intimacy, care and love we want there to be between people, and all the trivial, forbidden and crazy feelings beneath the surface when people meet. She won the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature in 2006 for the novel Doing Good; in her speech to the winners, critic Margunn Vikingstad said that ‘Marstein’s sharp eye and unpretentious narrative voice are a particular quality in the authorship she has already established’, and that ‘with Doing Good, Trude Marstein has created a great work of the art of storytelling.’ Marstein’s latest novel Conscience has been given a brilliant reception and been nominated for the Critics Prize, the Brage Prize, the Booksellers Prize, the Young Critics Prize and the P2 Listeners Novel Prize.

Prizes:
2007: The P.O. Enquist Prize
2006: The Critics’ Prize
2004: The Doubloug Prize
2002: The “Hunger” Prize
2002: The Vestfold County Literary Prize
1998: The Tarjei Vesaas Debutant Prize

 

Sample translation from her new novel Conscience (publication July 2018): 

Foreign sales:

2018: CONSCIENCE: SWEDEN, BONNIER / DENMARK, ROSINANTE / RUSSIA, POLYANDRIA

2012: HOME TO ME: SWEDEN, BONNIER / DENMARK, TIDERNE SKIFTER

2009: NOTHING TO REGRET: SWEDEN, KABUSA / DENMARK, TIDERNE SKIFTER

2006: DOING GOOD: FRANCE, ED. STOCK / THE NETHERLANDS, HOUTEKIET-ATLAS / DENMARK, TIDERNE SKIFTER / SWEDEN, KABUSA

Trude Marstein High resolution image

Credits: Julie Pike

Publications