Forfatterbesøk: Alf van der Hagen om Ingvar Ambjørnsen - Haugesund Folkebibliotek

The lecture is in Norwegian.

Through nine long evenings and nights in Hamburg, Ingvar Ambjørnsen has recounted his life in candid conversations with Alf van der Hagen. The result is the conversation book "Ønsk meg heller god tur" (Wish Me Bon Voyage Instead). In this lecture, Alf van der Hagen tells about Ingvar Ambjørnsen's extensive body of work and eventful life.

Since his debut in 1981, Ingvar Ambjørnsen has written characters who stand on the edge or on the outside of society, characters marked by anxiety and mental unrest, substance abuse, and loneliness. With warmth and humor, he has written about friendship and alienation, solidarity, and powerful experiences in nature. His books have become popular reading, beloved by both young and adult readers.

Ambjørnsen was an outdoor enthusiast in childhood and an environmentalist in his youth, with a strong concern for the planet's future. He speaks freely and vividly about ecstatic experiences through nature, his own experience of loneliness and illness, his upbringing in Larvik among hippies and petty criminals, his time working in a psychiatric ward, and his years as a writer in Oslo and Hamburg. Ambjørnsen emerges in this book as a free spirit, a deeply humanistic writer, and a firework of a storyteller. With the genre of "conversation memoirs," Alf van der Hagen has created a unique blend of cultural history and author biography. It's award-winning, critically acclaimed, and truly unique books that have garnered Alf van der Hagen a large readership.