– I see myself as a Norwegian writer
The winner of Tarjei Vesaas’ debutant award is Danish, but has Norwegian roots and lives in Oslo.
Kristin Vego has a degree in literature, but has never attended any writing school. Ho has edited and written for the Norwegian magazine Vagant for several years, and is also a literary critic for Danish Information.
The language
She grew up in Aarhus in Denmark with a Norwegian mother and Danish father and Vesaas in the bookshelf, but it was only when “Fuglane” by Tarjei Vesaas was translated into Danish and she got the job of reporting the book to Information that she read the novel.
– Mother often suggested that I should read Vesaas, but when I was young I didn’t understand what he wrote, she says when VTB meets her after a book interview with Stein Versto at Vinjar.
– Do you write in Norwegian yourself?
– No, I write in Danish. I must be faithful to Danish, so that I do not lose the language. I see that mother has done it. Ho writes Korkje purely Danish or purely Norwegian after 40 years in Denmark.
– And what is it like for you to read Nynorsk?
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– Then it goes slowly, says ho and laughs a little.
– Danish and Bokmål go just fine, Nynorsk goes slowly and Swedish is almost impossible.
About himself
Kristin Vego writes in Danish, but her short story collections were rejected in Denmark. Then she sent the script to Gyldendal publishing house in Norway and they wanted to publish her collection of short stories, “See the last time everything beautiful.”
– As part of the editing work, I translated the book into Norwegian, says ho.
After publication, the finished order was bought by a Danish publisher. Then the author sits down and translates the book into Danish.
Now she is starting a new writing project, but says that she still doesn’t quite know what it will be. Just that it won’t be short stories, even if that is her favorite genre.
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– What did the price mean?
– As a debutant, one is afraid of being overlooked. Receiving the Vesaas prize makes the book more visible, says Kristin Vego.
– The biggest so far?
– First, it is this being accepted and published that is the biggest, and then getting this award that is assessed by skilled professionals, then it becomes the biggest, says Kristin Vego.
The still life and visual play
“Look at everything beautiful for the last time” consists of a series of short stories, all of which in their own way are about young women in their 20s who are in or are facing a crisis or a major change in life. During the conversation with Stein Versto, he pointed out that «Looking at everything beautifully» is a silent book, but that he nevertheless made himself visible without the great external drama.
– I am happy that the book made itself visible, even if she does not shout so loudly, says the author.
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The jury and award were: “The ability to portion out information in the right amount is one of the things that characterizes good short stories, and it’s an art that Kristin Vego masters. The same ability for moderation shows itself in the stylish language and the simple but effective means the author uses to draw up the connection between the individual and the universal. In an elegant way, she brings out a sense of the fragility of her characters, of how short the distance is between what carries and what breaks.’
Sensory play
About «Fuglane» she says that the novel has a fantastically moving main character.
– But i.a. also became extra interested because the book reminds me of «The Liar» by the Danish author Martin A. Hansen. And then discovered that Tarjei Vesaas and Martin A. Hansen were good friends. In what they wrote, one finds the same relationship to nature, to the symbolic, and the same underlying uneasiness that something is a little dangerous, something destructive is unfolding in both books. And they use the same bird; snapper, or rougde as it is called in Norwegian.
Kristin Vego writes to her friends not quite unlike them. The sensuality, nature and the fact that something difficult is at the door characterize her short stories.
– You don’t write quite differently. Are you very sensitive?
– Oak is probably it. I take in a lot, I am sensitive to both light and sound. But the most important thing is the desire to seize the fleeting in these glimpses that just fly by, and let it tickle.
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– Are you a Norwegian or a Danish writer?
– For example, I look at myself as a Norwegian writer.