Per Petterson was born in 1952 and was a librarian and a bookseller before he published his first work, a volume of short stories, in 1987. Since then he has written three novels which have established his reputation as one of Norway's best fiction writers. His new novel is I Curse the River of Time.

1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?

The Smiths had this song called The Boy With a Thorn in his Side. Thats it I think.

2. How long did it take you to write this book?

It took me 3 years. Not 12 hours a day, of course, but I am a slow writer.

3. Where is your favorite place to write?

In my working cabin some hundred meters from my house.

4. How do you choose your characters' names?

I find it very difficult. If the name doesnt come by itself, the characters tend to be without one. Sometimes it is just as well. The hero of To Siberia has no name.

5. How many drafts do you go through?

The full manuscript, only one. But each page goes through the grinder many times in the process. When I have reached the end, the book is finished.

6. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be?

Moby Dick. But I dont know how I possibly could have. Its my number one top of the list book, though.

7. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?

Viggo Mortensen?

8. What's your favourite city in the world?

London.

9. If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask?

I am little shy when it comes to other writers. I often feel stupid when I meet them. I could ask Richard Ford when his new book will be out, I am a great fan, but then I know him, so it doesnt count.

10. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind?

I listen to classical music. I love rock music, but it makes me want to sing along, or dance, and its difficult to concentrate and write when you do that.



11. Who is the first person who gets to you read your manuscript?

My editor. It used to be my wife, but she often started to cry in the middle of the reading, and then I did, and we didnt get anywhere.

12. Do you have a guilty pleasure read?

I love Hammond Innes' books, because they are about people, men, doing physical things in a physical world, real work, and I love reading about it. But, come to think of it, I dont really feel guilty.

13. What's on your nightstand right now?

Gregor von Rezzoris Memoirs of an Anti-Semite. Great book about a world, a part of Europe, that literally does not exist anymore.

14. What is the first book you remember reading?

Grown-up book? Gone with the Wind. Awesome for a thirteen-year-old boy. Passion! You didnt see much of that where I lived.

15. Did you always want to be a writer?

Since I was 18 there was no other way out. Absolutely no other way. It was scary really.

16. What do you drink or eat while you write?

Coffee, coffee, coffee. It will eventually kill me.

17. Typewriter, laptop, or pen & paper?

Mac. The "big" one, and the laptop.

18. What did you do immediately after hearing that you were being published for the very first time?

I went to fetch my daughter in the kindergarten. She still remembers it.

19. How do you decide which narrative point of view to write from?

Usually it just comes naturally. In retrospect I see I most often go for the voice.

20. What is the best gift someone could give a writer?

To say they had to read your books a second time, and a third...