Gunnhild Øyehaug

Ho debuterte med diktsamlinga Slaven av blåbæret i 1998. Ho har gitt ut novellesamlinga Knutar (2004) og essaysamlinga Stol og ekstase (2006). Gunnhild Øyehaug er utdanna cand.philol, er lærar ved Skrivekunstakademiet i Hordaland og medredaktør av litteraturtidsskriftet Kraftsentrum. Ho har tidligere vore medredaktør i tidsskriftet Vagant og litteraturkritikar i Morgenbladet og Klassekampen. I 2006 fekk ho Bjørnsonstipendet og i 2007 Tanums kvinnestipend.

Utgivelser

Undis Brekke
- Gunnhild Øyehaug,
- Silje Breivik
Undis Brekke handlar om den 37 år gamle Undis Brekke som vender tilbake til heimbygda for å ta seg jobb som lektor i nordisk på høgskulen, endå ho er svært lei av studentar. Ho kjem akkurat i tide til å få med seg den årlege julemiddagen til høgskulens nordiskkollegium, og blir der konfrontert med ulike bitar av barndom, ungdom og tidleg vaksendom som ho har prøvd å feie under teppet. Svik, håp og angst, skrivesperre, kjærleik, mannlege og kvinnelege ekskjærastar, pms, barndomsvener og foreldre, får sine plassar i dette portrettet av ei kvinne som prøver å få hovudet over vatnet. Korleis stå opp for eigne verdiar, korleis sjå si eiga netthinne, korleis nærme seg si eiga mor, og korleis ete smalahove, er spørsmål romanen stiller.
Hjartet i skalkeskjulet
Heart Undercover contains nine essays on art, literature, film, inspiration and writing. Through occasionally personal, poetological research and readings of authors and artists such as Edvard Munch, Nikolai Astrup, Mary Ruefle, Claire-Louise Bennett and Andrei Tarkovsky, the texts revolve around literary transformation points, abstraction and realism, creation and re-creation. If Heart Undercover is an associative, momentary memoir about, for example, standing up to your knees in ice-cold dirt, it is also about work in the first-person singular, about dramaturgy, and about comedy. In her third collection of essays, Gunnhild Øyehaug delivers a rich, thought-provoking and poetic reflection on literature’s capacity for both fantastic transformation and for holding on tight to something imagined, lived and experienced.

Gunnhild Magnussen Gunni Marie Banggren

Vonde blomar

Umogelege metamorfosar, kjøtmeiser, mygg og menneske med store lengslar, store sorger, små problem og store og små tankar spelar seg ut i novellesamlinga Vonde blomar. Kva skal du til dømes gjere når du plukkar vonde blomar? Kva skal du seie i opningstalen din når det flunkande nye museet ditt har sokke i jorda? Kva skal du gjere når alt du tek i blir til slimål? Og kva skal du gjere når du har lengta etter å besøke dei kvite klippene ved Dover, men no er død? Vonde blomar handlar om kjærleik, død og opprør, om å skifte form eller å bli verande den same, om flokane i det arbeidet som heiter å forstå.

Presens Maskin

Presens Maskin handlar om Anna og Laura. Dei er mor og dotter, og idet verda eit overraskande sekund deler seg i to parallelle univers ein gong på 90-talet, blir dei fanga i kvar sin del. Tjueein år seinare har livet gått vidare som om ingenting har skjedd, men i dei to kvinnene sine liv er det noko som ikkje stemmer.Presens Maskin er ein kjærleiksroman om livets ubotelege einsemd. Om uante konsekvensar av feillesingar, om fåkunne og undring, om merkelege lys på himmelen, strandsniper, barn, språkets indre, uforståelege pianostykke, og ikkje minst, om menneske i relasjon til andre menneske. «Roman som utvider tankene. Øyehaug skaper et sinnrikt og flertydig romanunivers med parallelle verdener.» Gro Jørstad Nilsen, Bergens Tidende «En av landets smarteste og kuleste forfattere.» Knut Hoem, NRK

Presens maskin

Draumeskrivar

Ei kvinne klarer ikkje å fjerne neglelakken frå neglene sine, ein litteraturprofessor skal sykle heim frå førelesing og hamnar i eit mareritt, ei kvinne drøymer kontinuerleg om noko anna enn dette, nokon forsvinn ut gjennom bussveggen ein heilt vanleg regnvérsdag, og intellektuelle kriser opptrer også i verdsrommet. I korte glimt viser kanskje livet seg i rein form, anten i draume eller i levande live, men kven kan forstå det, og kven kan fortelje? Draumeskrivar spør.

Undis Brekke

The Dinner Party is about 37-year-old Undis Brekke who returns to the farming community she grew up in, in order to teach Norwegian at the local college, even though she is thoroughly fed up with students. She arrives just in time for the annual Christmas dinner at the faculty for Nordic studies, where she is forced to confront various scraps and pieces of her own childhood and adolescence that she has attempted to sweep under the carpet.Betrayal, hope and anxiety, writer’s block, male and female exes, pre-menstrual syndrome, childhood friends and parents are all potent ingredients in this portrait of a woman who is struggling to keep her head above water. How can you defend your own values, how can you see your own retina, how can you approach your own mother and how can you eat a whole, charcoaled sheep’s head … the novel addresses all these issues.Foreign Sales:Denmark, GyldendalPraise "a real pageturner about longing and self-deception - brilliantly written with lots of black humour" Kamille "Few Norwegian writers can depict life's gravity with a more liberating lightness than Gunnhild Øyehaug" ***** (5/6 stars) VG "Incredibly well composed ... an impressively tight and fast-paced novel" Bergens Tidende "It's exhilaratingly well written, it's sharp and it's terrible and it's very recognizable - also for for those who have never set foot on a small town university ... The abrupt zoomings and all the layers lying there talking with each other makes the novel a feast" NRK "As is fitting for this excellent entertainer, there is also darkness and seriousness in Øyehaug's writing. Little by little Undis takes shape as a vulnerable little girl, betrayed by her mother and an outcast at school. The caricature of the failed academic gets an undertone of desperation and trauma. Undis Brekke is a pleasurable crisis novel that you'll be loath to put down" Aftenposten "A funny, unusually well-written book ... moves elegantly from vivid depictions of the disgusting head which is about to be eaten, through sharp observations of professors of Norwegian at a party, to more vulnerable sections on longing, growing up and a difficult mother-daughter relationship" Dagsavisen "Art and life are connected in Øyehaug's book, which achieves both, by sharpening its skills in at least two important verbs: thinking and looking." Dagens Næringsliv

Vente, blinke

Wait, Blink is a novel with several stories. We meet Sigrid, a rather timid young literature student, and witness her soulconsuming encounter with the author Kåre, the movie director Linnea (who is going location hunting in Copenhagen), the performance artist Trine (whose breasts are bursting with milk), and, last but not least, Viggo, also a literature student, who longs to belong to someone or something. Elida, a fisherman´s daughter, Robert, a film producer, and Göran, a literature professor, also play their roles in this group of shivering and at times desperate characters.Gunnhild Øyehaug´s novel is both wide-ranging and complex. She is a playful and frisky writer, and Wait, Blink is both humorous and profound. It is a novel about desire and dreams, women and men, love and what it means to dare to be yourself.Long-listed for The National Book Award in Translated Literature 2018FOREIGN SALES: DENMARK, THE NETHERLANDS, GERMANY, POLAND, SWEDEN, USA"If it isn’t precisely perfect, it’s awfully damn close." Kirkus Reviews, USA"[…] both marvelous and mundane. The book is wonderfully funny and strange […]." pasatiempo "Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's easy to lose your breath, but that's the way it is in WAIT, BLINK,where all kinds of threads, associations, quotations, accidents, meta-literary points and - especially - peculiar details, gather up to one great talking, thinking, original and unreasonably funny and self-ironic novel." Weekendavisen, Denmark "These poor Norwegian fumble about in a both entertaining and strained way in Gunnhild Øyehaug's technically clever first novel. But beneath all the fumbling, there is a feminist call to arms". Politiken, Denmark "The Norwegian writer Gunnhild Øyehaug has written a book which is deliciously prepared and served by a well-writing pen." Berlingske Tidende, Denmark "WAIT, BLINK is a perfect novel for our time." Dagens Nyheter, Sweden "Gunnhild Øyehaug has written a 'literary' novel. In contrast to many others, she succeeds in making it both ambitious and entertaining." Göteborgs-Posten, Sweden "WAIT, BLINK is an ambitious project, which takes the well-worn archetypical story of how and when to stand up, allow yourself to love and be loved, to a new level. The seemingly incompatible mix of indolent attempts at socialisation in Scandinavian life and the giants of cultural history that Øyehaug carries out throughout the book, is both amusing and fascinating." Smålandsposten, Sweden "This is a richly rewarded, fully grown and hyperconsciously, comically dense and heartbreakingly sad slice of a few Norwegian 'young adults' dismal struggle to make their social lives work." Sydsvenskan, Sweden "My God, what a book. Inventive and lively, both in prose and content. This might the best Norwegian book this year." Aftenposten "Brilliant and well-crafted. An impressive, powerful and amusing first novel!" Bergens Tidende "Is this 'a perfect image of an inner life' as the subtitle claims? Questions like this make it fun to read. How about all the other literary names here? They are so absurdly arranged, that anyone can wonder - or not. This makes WAIT, BLINK an exclusive novel which welcomes everybody in. A perfect combination." NRK P2 "An unusually ambitious novel" Klassekampen"With hilarious poignancy, she laces in all of the little pieces of the world that by design or, more often, by coincidence, factor into the women’s stories. The result is that this novel, though revolving around the stories of three women, feels like a story about the whole, hard, ridiculous world. Øyehaug weaves her characters and their world together into a novel that feels as much like a real picture of inner life as it does an author’s beautiful game." THE PARIS REVIEW