People like Johan Harstad

Johan Harstad (born 10 February 1979) is a Norwegian novelist, short story writer, playwright and graphic designer. He lives in Oslo.

Harstad was born in Stavanger. He made his literary debut in 2001, with a collection of short prose entitled Herfra blir du bare eldre ('From here on in you only get older'). The following year he published a collection of short stories called Ambulanse ('Ambulance') and 2005 saw the publication of his first novel, Buzz Aldrin, hvor ble det av deg i alt mylderet? ('Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?'). The novel is mainly set in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. It deals with a person who, instead of trying to be best, decides to be second best in life, like his hero, Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. In 2009 the novel was made into a television series, starring Chad Coleman as well as other, well known Scandinavian actors, including Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen and Bjarne Henriksen. Rights to the book have been sold to United States, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, the Faroe Islands, Italy, Russia, Turkey, South Korea and France. Demanding that the book be translated into English, an editor in the publishing house Simon & Schuster likened Harstad's work with that of Jonathan Safran Foer. The book was published in English by Seven Stories Press in New York in June 2011, and was named a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Title of 2011 and one of Electric Literature's Most Beautiful Books of the Year.