Bjarte Breiteig is an Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 writer.

Background

Bjarte Breiteig was born in Kristiansand

Kristiansand

-History:As indicated by archeological findings in the city, the Kristiansand area has been settled at least since 400 AD. A royal farm is known to have been situated on Oddernes as early as 800, and the first church was built around 1040...

, 1974. He studied physics at NTNU in Trondheim

Trondheim

Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...

, but dropped out after two years to study literature at the same place. He has studied at the Skrivekunstakademiet and the University of Bergen

University of Bergen

The University of Bergen is located in Bergen, Norway. Although founded as late as 1946, academic activity had taken place at Bergen Museum as far back as 1825. The university today serves more than 14,500 students...

. He now resides in Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

.

Work

Published in 1998, Bjarte Breiteig's first short story collection, Fantomsmerter, received glowing reviews and Aschehougs debutantpris. His next collection of short stories, Surrogater was published in 2000. In 2003, Bjarte Breiteig was one of five young authors whose work was included in a collection of short stories published under the title of Borders by the European literary project Scritture Giovani. This means Breiteig's short story Fremover was translated into Welsh, German, English and Italian. He received the Anders Jahre

Anders Jahre

Anders August Jahre was a Norwegian shipping magnate. Jahre was educated in law, and worked as a lawyer in Sandefjord from 1916 until 1928. Meanwhile he was also involved in the whaling industry, and he founded the whaling company A/S Kosmos in 1928, operating out of Sandefjord...

s pris for yngre kunstnere (Anders Jahre's prize for young artists) in 2004. In 2006, his third short story collection, Folk har begynt å banke på, was published and resulted in his being awarded the Max Wiel Nygaards legat (Max Wiel Nygaards Endowment). He was also awarded the Mads Wiel Nygaards Endowment

Mads Wiel Nygaards Endowment

Mads Wiel Nygaard's Endowment is an annually awarded literary prize from the publishing house Aschehoug. The prize is a recognition of superior literary work. The publisher's editorial management makes the award based on their collective judgement of merit. Applications are not accepted.The...

in 2006.

External links

• Breiteig, Bjarte - Official homepage (Norwegian)
• Breiteig, Bjarte - Aschehoug & co (English)
• Breiteig, Bjarte - Dagbladet :litteratur (Norwegian)