Olaug Nilssen awarded the 2024 Amalie Skram Prize
We’re so happy for our very own Olaug Nilssen, who was awarded the prestigious Amalie Skam Prize for 2024. The Amalie Skram Prize is awarded to a female Norwegian fiction writer who writes in the spirit of Amalie Skram.
From the Jury’s statement:
Olaug Nilssen’s authorship is characterised by intensity, determination, objectivity, curiosity, and opposition. Always firmly rooted, Nilssen strives for pointed observations, challenges, and a borderland where neither she nor the reader is prepared for what happens, but which is brought about by a linguistic and literary abundance. Nilssen does not shy away from the transgressive, even though she also demonstrates clear personal and moral boundaries.
Like Amalie Skram, Olaug Nilssen doesn’t avoid confronting the uncomfortable, the painful, and the shameful. The unsentimental and truth-seeking nature of Nilssen’s voice is Skram-like at its core (…) Vulnerability is Nilssen’s strength, just as it was Skram’s. At its best, literature breaks boundaries and creates greater understanding. Nilssen’s work offers tone and text to wordless experiences. In her writing, Nilssen makes the personal political, thus continuing a solid tradition of women writers before her.
Olaug Nilssen holds a cand.mag. degree from the University of Bergen, with an emphasis on Nordic studies, sociology, and literature. She made her debut as a fiction writer in 1998 with the novel Innestengt i udyr (Samlaget). In 2002, she published the novel Vi har så korte armar (Samlaget), followed by Få meg på, for faen (Samlaget) in 2005.
Nilssen has also published in other genres: the children’s book Ronnys rumpe (Cappelen Damm) was released in 2004, the essay collection Hybrideleg sjølvgransking (Samlaget) in 2005, the interview book Kjøkenbenkrealisme. Ærlege historier om tidsklemma (Samlaget) in 2012, and Ikkje tenk på det (Samlaget) in 2019. Nilssen has also written several dramatic works, including Skyfri himmel from 2006 and Stort og stygt from 2013. Additionally, the novel Få meg på, for faen has been both adapted for stage and made into a film.
Nilssen’s major works are the three novels A Tale of Terrible Times (Tung tids tale, Samlaget) from 2017, The One Needful Thing (Yt etter evne, få etter behov, Samlaget) from 2020, and Unwanted Behaviour (Uønska åtferd, Samlaget) from 2023. Through various literary techniques and approaches, these novels shed light on the challenges faced by a mother and family of a child with autism, ranging from the everyday and practical to the emotional, relational, and societal.
Read the full statement here (in Norwegian).
A Tale of Terrible Times has been sold to five languages and received multiple awards, including the Brage Prize for best Norwegian novel in 2017.
The One Needful Thing has been sold to three languages and won the P2 Audience Novel Award in 2020.
Congratulations, Olaug!
