Trude Marstein

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’ Prize2004: The Doubloug Prize2002: The “Hunger” Prize2002: The Vestfold County Literary Prize1998: The Tarjei Vesaas Debutant Prize