Karl Ove Knausgård wrote 3,600 pages about his own life and became one of the most important European authors of his generation. My Struggle (Min Kamp), published in six volumes between 2009 and 2011, is autobiography written with the intensity of fiction. Knausgård holds nothing back: his father’s alcoholism, his own insecurities, the tedium of changing diapers at 3 a.m.
The series was a sensation in Scandinavia. In Norway, a country of five million people, the books sold nearly half a million copies. They also caused real damage. Knausgård’s uncle threatened legal action over the portrayal of their family. His second wife was hospitalized during the writing process. The books are honest in a way that cost him relationships.
Beyond My Struggle, Knausgård has written novels, essays, and a four-volume seasonal quartet (Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer) addressed to his youngest daughter. His prose style is distinctive: long, flowing sentences that move between the mundane and the profound without signaling which is which. A passage about buttering toast can carry the same weight as a passage about grief.