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Johan Harstad offers a wholly original voice and is one of the most obvious talents published by Gyldendal for many years.

He sees human fates in modern reality in a way that is both urgent and refined, offering a complete involvement and a particular sense of absurd humor. His characters often stand slightly to one side, at a distance to the major pulse of society. They are vulnerable, lonely, different.

In his first novel Buzz Aldrin, what happened to you in all the confusion? (2005), Harstad completes a fascinating project. The novel tackles the big question: What does it mean to be a human today? What is important in our lives? The narrative voice is convincing, and Mattias, the protagonist, strives to be the invisible second man, the cog, the one nobody notices. A grand scale novel about life, sea, death and love, it references popular culture, lyrics, songs and bands. “Buzz Aldrin is an enchanting adventure with a terrifically good narrator.” Het Patrool, Amsterdam.

Hässelby (2007): It’s about growing up in a suburb and knowing you’ll never escape. It’s about the collection value of Star Wars action figures, about the rock group The Police, about acausal causalities and everyday synchronicity. It’s a novel that takes the reader from Hässelby to Hong Kong to Normandy by way of resistance struggle, capitulation, and nights of terror, through overfilled ironmonger storerooms and into deserted streets onto which rubbish is emptied in the first light of dawn. Hässelby is a novel about those all too numerous demons that come, perhaps, at the very worst time, but that nonetheless must come – sooner or later.

In 2009 Johan Harstad was employed as the Nationaltheatret’s first house play write. Etc. is the play that grew out of that engagement, partially in collaboration with the theatre’s actors. It is an extensive work, brutally merciless, almost exhausting, but also beautiful and funny. According to the author it is “simply the most aggressive thing I have ever written.”

Johan Harstad made his debut 21 years old, with a contribution to Postboks 6860 in 2000, releasing his first collection of prose works, From here on you just get older, in 2001. This was followed by a collection of short stories, Ambulance, in 2002 received with critical acclaim, translated into French and Finnish. Harstad has also written four pieces for the theatre, Degrees of White, Washingtin, Krasnoyarsk, The Breadman's Memoirs collected in BSIDES published in 2008. Harstad's last publication is the play Etc. 2010.

Harstad’s work is translated into Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Russian, Faroese, German, Dutch, French, Italian, English and Korean.

Buzz Aldrin, what happened to you in all the confusion? is due to be launched by Seven Stories Press, New York 6th June 2011.

"There's so much music, exuberance, bewilderment and sweet melancholy in Johan Harstad's Buzz Aldrin. It's rock 'n' roll, then heartbreaking, then rock 'n' roll again. I devoured every line."
Paolo Giordano, author of The Solitude of Prime Numbers

"Harstad published his first collection of stories when he was 21. Several books later, he has established himself as one of the most important writers of his generation."
Silje Bekeng of N1BR/ literary magazine/New York

"I'd follow this voice anywhere”
– from a high-ranking sales rep at Random House Publisher Services

Publications
 

Etc.

Johan Harstad

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Hässelby

Johan Harstad

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Buzz Aldrin - What Happened to You in all the Confusion?

Johan Harstad

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