{"id":98227,"date":"2016-05-16T18:51:27","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T22:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=98227"},"modified":"2016-05-16T19:00:06","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T23:00:06","slug":"knausgaard-the-publisher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/05\/16\/knausgaard-the-publisher\/","title":{"rendered":"Knausgaard the Publisher"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

The Pelikanen team.<\/p><\/div>\n

When Karl Ove Knausgaard joins us in New York this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the Norwegian-American Literary Festival<\/a>, he\u2019ll do so not just as the author of My Struggle <\/em>but as the publisher of Pelikanen<\/a> (Pelican), the house he founded in 2010. Knausgaard runs the press on what he calls \u201can idealistic basis\u201d\u2014it\u2019s a nonprofit\u2014with his brother Yngve, Asbj\u00f8rn Jensen, and a few friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a writer you\u2019re always alone,\u201d Knausgaard told Ane Farseth\u00e5s<\/a> of the Norwegian\u00a0newspaper\u00a0Morgenbladet<\/em>, explaining why he chose to become a publisher:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

I think for me it\u2019s really about getting away from that, creating some kind of a community through publishing books\u2014a community of readers, but also writers. We started with a single book that we wanted to publish, by Geir Angell \u00d8ygarden, who is the Geir of the\u00a0My Struggle<\/em>\u00a0books. The project gradually grew more ambitious from there. When I started writing, the U.S. seemed this far-away, unattainable place, the books from there seemed to come from another planet. When I began to travel I got it: Those writers that you just read about in the paper and that seem so far away, are actual people, who sit there writing by themselves, just like writers do here. It\u2019s an obvious insight, not even worth the name of insight, but it felt like a revelation! So translating and publishing books is also a way of connecting with good writers. The Norwegian-American Literary Festival has created many connections between the two worlds, and I see how valuable that is.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"manuell_cover_ny_mini\"<\/a>The festival will feature the Norwegian author Cathrine Knudsen, published by Pelikanen, and several writers the house publishes in translation: Katie Kitamura,\u00a0Claire-Louise Bennett, and\u00a0Christian Kracht. \u201cThere\u2019s so little that gets translated into Norwegian,\u201d Knausgaard said. \u201cWe can really pick and chose. We publish Norwegian writers, and American, but also writers from Switzerland, Germany, Iceland, and other places. We want to expand and not be limited to a single place or culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pelikanen also publishes Ben Marcus in translation\u2014his novel The Flame Alphabet <\/em>is \u201camong the books I am the most proud of having published,\u201d Knausgaard said. \u201cI read\u00a0In the Age of Wire and String<\/em>\u00a0when it came out in the midnineties, and I was struck by it: that short fantastic text conjured up a world of its own, it was an experiment that did something I had never seen before. Much later, when I went to the U.S., I picked up\u00a0The Flame Alphabet<\/em>\u00a0and I had a similar experience, that it was like nothing else. But now I had a way to share it with readers back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geir Gulliksen, Knausgaard\u2019s editor in Norway, will appear at the festival this week, too. An accomplished essayist, poet, novelist, and playwright, Gulliksen is the author of the novel Story of a Marriage<\/em>, a contemporary counterpart to Ingmar Bergman\u2019s classic Scenes from a Marriage<\/em>. The book is nominated for this year\u2019s Nordic Council Literature\u00a0Prize.<\/p>\n

Click here for the festival\u2019s full schedule<\/a>. All events are free and open to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Karl Ove Knausgaard joins us in New York this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the Norwegian-American Literary Festival, he\u2019ll do so not just as the author of My Struggle but as the publisher of Pelikanen (Pelican), the house he founded in 2010. Knausgaard runs the press on what he calls \u201can idealistic basis\u201d\u2014it\u2019s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[22382,7647,22381,22296,22293,1605,8542,22295,22378,6122,13897,22380,22379,18160,272,113],"class_list":["post-98227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","tag-ane-farsethas","tag-ben-marcus","tag-cathrine-knudsen-geir-gulliksen","tag-christian-kracht","tag-claire-louise-bennett","tag-events-2","tag-karl-ove-knausgaard","tag-katie-kitamura","tag-nalf","tag-norway","tag-norwegian-american-literary-festival","tag-pelican","tag-pelikanen","tag-publisher","tag-publishing","tag-writer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nKarl Ove Knausgaard, Publisher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The author of the best-selling My Struggle 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