In autumn 2023 Alf van der Hagen published the critically acclaimed conversation book Ønsk meg heller god tur, which has since appeared in four new editions. Over nine long evenings and nights in Hamburg, Ingvar Ambjørnsen shared his life in candid conversations, and in the book readers can observe as if they were a fly on the wall. This is the closest we get to an autobiography from Ingvar Ambjørnsen, who passed away in the summer of 2025 after many years of illness. In 2023 Ambjørnsen received both the Aschehoug Prize and the Brage Honorary Prize.
In this lecture, Alf van der Hagen presents Ambjørnsen's eventful life: growing up in Larvik as an outdoor enthusiast and scout, his youth as a conservationist concerned about the planet, and later joining the bohemian crowd, a mix of artists, hash smokers, and petty criminals. He then moved from the city, working in psychiatric hospitals in Lier and Bergen, studied at an agricultural college, published his debut with a Bergen-based publisher, lived for years without a permanent address in Oslo, and eventually moved to Hamburg in 1985, becoming one of Norway's most prolific and popular authors with the Elling series and the youth novels about Pelle and Proffen.
Since his debut, Ingvar Ambjørnsen has created characters on the margins of society, marked by anxiety, mental turmoil, addiction, and exclusion, but also by warmth, humour, friendship, solidarity, and strong experiences of nature. His books have become beloved reading for both young and adult readers.
With the genre of conversational memoirs, Alf van der Hagen has created a unique blend of cultural history and author biography in encounters with, among others, Dag Solstad, Kjell Askildsen, Suzanne Brøgger, and Ingvar Ambjørnsen. These are award-winning and unique books that have earned Alf van der Hagen a large readership.
This lecture will be held in Norwegian.