In The Observer Andrew Anthony asks a number of Norwegian authors How do you write crime fiction in the wake of a massacre ?
Jo Nesbø, author of Harry Hole novels such as The Redbreast, is one of the authors he talks to:
Jo Nesbø, author of Harry Hole novels such as The Redbreast, is one of the authors he talks to:
"I don't know how my writing will change," Nesbø later said. "It will change ... I will not address the massacre itself. But it's so influenced our way of thinking and our society. So it will be there in my novels somewhere, I'm sure."Jan Kjærstad -- not strictly a crime writer, but the author of, for example, the Wergeland-trilogy (which begins with The Seducer) -- also weighs in:
Kjaerstad thinks it will take a long period of creative gestation before a good novel is produced dealing with 22 July. In the meantime, he's doubtful that the search for societal answers will prove all that fruitful. "People are going too fast and coming to very easy conclusions. It is of course an illusion that you can fix something like this. If someone goes into a bubble, you can't reach them. When they pass a certain level of rationality, they are beyond reach."