Susanne Skogstad: Old Age, Grief, Loneliness
– Norway
Born in 1991, after high school, she worked for several years in a window factory, is currently studying screenwriting in Oslo. She published her literary debut, the novel Svartstilla, at the age of twenty-six with, focusing on the themes of old age, loneliness and the contrast between the past imbued with love and the present filled with loss and sorrow. The narrator is an aging woman who sinks into a deep depression after husband's death. Through the repetition of motifs in this lyrical prose, the author mimics the wandering of the human mind. In the novel, she also captured the ambivalent relationship of contemporary society with the elderly. She is regarded as one of the most talented young Scandinavian authors.