Literature evening
- meet three contemporary Norwegian Authors

Per Petterson, Helene Uri
and Lars Svendsen

Monday, September 24, at 7 pm
at the Norwegian Seamen's Church, 317 East 52nd Street

Like Ibsen in the nineteenth century, today's Norwegian writers are showing that literature in our time lives by the way that it debates problems. And yet again, the world is catching on to the sensibility of contemporary Norwegian literature. Norwegian books are reaching an increasingly large audience abroad. In association with the Norwegian Consulate and NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad, Fiction and Non-fiction) the Norwegian Church in New York invite you to an evening of reading and conversation with three of the most interesting writers to come out of Norway in the past years.

Per Petterson is harvesting the fruits of more than 20 years as an author, and took home the prestigious IMPAC Dublin Literary Award earlier this year for Out Stealing Horses, the jury praising it as a 'magical novel that captivates the reader'. The New York Times calls it a 'short yet spacious and powerful book'.

Lars Svendsen, professor of philosophy. In his latest book to come out in the U.S., Fashion: a philosophy Lars Svendsen probes the elusive place of fashion in art, politics and history, exploring the myths and ideas that make up haute couture. He elegantly follows up his 2004 exploration of boredom where he philosophized over inactivity as a major part of our lives, drawing on such philosophers as Kant, Nietzsche and Hegel.

Helene Uri. In 2006, Helene Uri released a novel that rattled Oslo's academic circles with its edgy and often raucous descriptions of the life and times at the Universtity of Oslo, where Uri was Associate Professor of linguistics until 2005. Her novel, Honey Toungues, which will be released this fall in the U.K., is the first of her books to be published in English, but she is already an established author with several critically acclaimed novels to her name.

Moderator: Gina Winje, director of NORLA, will guide us through this evening - offering her thoughts on translating Norwegian contemporary literature to English. Since 2006 Gina Winje is Director of NORLA, (Norwegian Literature Abroad, Fiction & Non-fiction) a government-funded, non-commercial foundation which promotes Norwegian literature to other countries.

When: Monday, September 24 at 7 pm
Where: Norwegian Seamen's Church, 317 east 52nd Street, NYC

Everyone is welcome!