Bjørn Sortland: Norway ⋆ Author

"The painter Edvard Munch was once asked which of his pictures was his favorite. He said this was impossible to answer. His pictures were like his children, and he couldn't decide which he liked best. This is the same for me and my books."

Bjørn Sortland

Born in Bergen on the west coast of Norway in 1968, Bjørn Sortland grew up on the nearby island of Bømlo. While employed as a trained social worker, he attended a course for writers at the Academy in Bergen in the early 1990s and debuted in 1992 with It is not Nighttime. Since 1998 writing has been his full time occupation, and he has published over 40 works for children and young adults. The recipient of numerous literary awards in Norway, Scandinavia, and beyond, Sortland's works have been translated into over a dozen languages, including Arabic, Korean and Urdu. Most of Sortland's books are written in nynorsk (New Norwegian), but he also publishes works in bokmål, the other official written Norwegian norm.

The theme of art is a hallmark of Sortland's authorship, and he weaves this thematic thread in myriad and often humorous ways into his picture books and novels, educating readers—younger and older—alike. His breakthrough work, Anna's Art Adventure (1993), describes a young girl's interactions with artists such as Munch, Picasso, Van Gogh, and Warhol, as she steps into their paintings in an art museum. The meeting between a famous artist and a child receives a more somber treatment in The Heart Remembers (2009), a picture book which describes a young girl's conversations with the physically frail Frida Kahlo, exchanges which help the girl process the gravity of her own sister's medical condition. While visual art is generally the focus of Sortland's works, he has also incorporated literary and film history into narratives. Sortland's Art Detective novels comprise one of the most popular series in Norway, introducing young readers to art in many parts of the world.

In addition to his passion for art, Sortland is known for his experimentation with genres. In 2009 he published The Girl with the Completely Even, Soft Eye Brows (2009), a tactile picture book for the blind set in the Balkans and illustrated by award winning Inger Lise Belsvik. Sortland has worked with an impressive array of illustrators through the years, including Øyvind Torseter, exposing his readers to a wide variety of visual art in this way as well. Bjørn Sortland frequently holds talks and workshops on art and writing for all age groups, from very young children to adults. He has also written for Norwegian radio and television.