LitHouse podcast

After 43 years together, author Siri Hustvedt loses her husband, the author Paul Auster, to an aggressive form of cancer. Now there is only Siri left, in a time in which memories, smells and words from the time before seep in. Eventually, she starts writing; about Auster's illness and his last days, about their early days together and their all-consuming love, about decades of a shared life filled with joy and laughter, with books and stories, worries and sorrow. Hustvedt's writing eventually becomes the book Ghost Stories: A Memoir.Ghost Stories is a personal account of the life of a popular and critically acclaimed author-couple, as well as an exploration of how grief and loss affect us, physiologically and mentally, in dialogue with philosophy, literary history and neuroscience. The grief from losing her husband mingles with the grief and anger over what kind of country the United States is becoming, what is lost, and what is worth fighting for.Siri Hustvedt is among the most central writers and thinkers in the US. She has written a number of critically acclaimed novels and essay collections, including The Summer without Men, The Blazing World, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves, and A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women.Writer and journalist Marte Spurkland has also written a personal account of losing her father to cancer, in the critically acclaimed Pappas runer («Dad’s Runes»). She met Hustvedt for a conversation about grief, memory and shared life.

No, reading novels is not a solution to our political miseries. For that organization, active resistance, and harder rhetoric is required. But we need stories.Author Siri Hustvedt said these words during a lecture at the House of Literature in 2017, in Donald Trump’s first term as president.Hustvedt is one of those writers who turns to literature as well as organized resistance faced with a harsh political reality. Together with her late husband, the author Paul Auster, she founded Writers Against Trump (today Writers For Democratic Action), a coalition that organizes town hall meetings, protests and political theatre. Hustvedt writes about the beginning of the movement in her latest book, Ghost Stories: A Memoir.Faced with Trump’s curbing of rights, and ICE’s conduct in a number of American cities, Hustvedt has been a staunch critic. Raised in Minnesota by Norwegian parents, she soon learned of her mother’s resistance to the Nazi occupation of Norway during the second world war. In a much-shared Facebook post, Hustvedt points to a parallel between the Norwegians’ resistance and today’s protests in the US: «the moral choice between accepting fascism and opposing it is the same,» she writes.What is the current situation in the US like for someone like Hustvedt, seeing ICE patrol her hometown? How are Americans responding to the continuous dismantling of their democracy and constitutional state? What is the role of the writer in critical times, and how may literature confront the material and interpersonal challenges that we are currently facing?Siri Hustvedt is among the most central writers and thinkers in the US. She has written a number of critically acclaimed novels and essay collections, including The Summer without Men, The Blazing World, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves, and A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women.At the House of Literature, she was joined by writer and journalist Karin Haugen for a conversation about a US unraveling, and about the resistance in art and community.

In A History of Women in 101 Objects, author Annabelle Hirsch shows us how the things around us aren’t just objects, but testimonies to a common cultural history and set of values. Hirsch shows how something as simple as a hair clip can betray power structures and how kitchen appliances have defined women’s role in society. With a playful tone and a political sharpness, A History of Women is a manifesto for women’s common history that also defies general perceptions of history’s progress and universal improvements.Annabelle Hirsch is a German-French journalist, author and translator. A History of Women is her first book and has garnered wide recognition since its publication in German in 2022.Now, she visits the House of Literature for a lecture on reading cultural histories out of the objects that surrounds us, where everyday objects can be symbols of liberation as well as subjection.After the lecture, there will be a short conversation led by author, women’s rights advocate and Director of the House of Literature, Susanne Kaluza. Kaluza has written two additional chapters for A History’s Norwegian publication and will meet Hirsch on stage for a short conversation.

Albanian Lea Ypi has a talent for combining the personal and the political in history, exploring how we are all shaped by the societies and ideologies surrounding us. In her memoir Free. A Child and a Country at the End of History, she skillfully portrays her own childhood during the socialist regime of Enver Hoxha in the latter half of the 20th century, followed by the state’s collapse and civil war.Ordinary humans in the midst of history is also the focus in her new book, Indignity: A Life Reimagined. An unknown photopgrah of her grandmother honeymooning in Mussolini’s Italy pops up on social media, making Ypi question everything she thought she knew about her family. Was her grandmother a Nazi collaborator? Or perhaps a Communist spy?This is the beginning of a thorough examination of her grandmothers life, one that takes Ypi back to the Ottoman empire, to Greece and then Albania through alternating regimes and occupants.Lea Ypi is a professor of political theory and philosophy at the London School of Economics. Her book Free was warmly received by both critics and readers, and is so far translated into 30 languages.Writer and journalist Simen Ekern has published several books about European and Italian politics and history. He joins Ypi for a conversation about ordinary humans in the midst of history.

The history of the Vikings is usually told from the top down, through powerful characters such as chiefs, commanders and royalty, with raids, looting and war at the centre of the narrative. But what about all the others? What was it like to live a normal life as farmer, a merchant, wife or child?This is the central question in a recent book by British Eleanor Barraclough, Embers of the Hands. Taking her starting point from archaeological finds in order to tell the story of ordinary people’s lives in the Viking Age, she reveals how, beneath the surface, we find stories equally dramatic to the great heroic tales of those on the top.On stage, she will be joined by her Norwegian colleague Tore Skeie. With books such as his award winning The Wolf Age: The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons, and the battle for the North Sea Empire, Skeie depicts a both vivid and brutal Viking Age rife with decisive events. Skeie’s approach to history is mainly through the upper class, such as through Saint Olaf or the nobleman Alv Erlingsson.Skeie and Barraclough write the history of the Viking Age from two different perspectives; from the bottom up and from the top down. What can these two ways of reading history learn from each other?The conversation was moderated by Carline Tromp, writer, critic and old norse philologist.The event was part of the Festival of Non-Fiction 2025.

Arinze Ifeakandu is a literary shooting star from Nigeria, with a characteristic, lyrical prose, who has been advocated by authors such as Damon Galgut og Colm Tóibín. God’s Children Are Little Broken Things from 2022 is his literary debut, winning him several literary prizes, including the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize. In addition to the short story collection, Ifeakandu has published several shorter pieces of both fiction and non-fiction, and is currently working on his first novel. This is Ifeakandu's reading list:* Chinua Achebe* Peter Abrahams, Mine Boy* Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers* NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names* Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun * Toni Morrison* James Baldwin* Maya Angelou * Gbenga Adesina * I.S. Jones* Ebenezer Agu* Logan February, Painted Blue with Salt Water* Gbenga Adeoba* Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo, The Tiny Things Are Heaviest* Eloghosa Osunde, Vagabonds!* Chukwuebuka Ibeh, Blessings* Gbolahan Adeola* Otosirieze Obi-Young from Open country magazine   The host in this episode is Madeleine Gedde MetzEditing and production by the House of LiteratureMusic by Ibou Cissokho The House of Literature’s project to promote African literature is supported by NORAD.

«Everything» has become political – what you eat, what you wear, where you work, what you dream of. Political engagement permeates society, and movements like Occupy Wall Street, the Yellow Vests, and Fridays for Future emerge and create headlines, before disappearing just as quickly. Yet this politicization does not lead to real social change, only to disillusionment and frustration.This is how Belgian historian Anton Jäger defines our times in his book Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences. Jäger describes how we are caught between continuous politicization and political apathy, where the focus has shifted from institutions to short lived movements and social media.Torbjørn Røe Isaksen is the political editor in the business newspaper E24, and he has read Jäger’s book with great interest. In addition to his long experience as an MP and from various ministerial positions in government for the Norwegian conservative party Høyre, he is the author of several books, including Ingen tror på nåtiden (No one believes in the present) from 2023. He joined Jäger during the Festival of Non-Fiction 2025 for a conversation about our hyperpolitical present, and what to do about it.The event is part of the Festival of Non-Fiction 2025.

South African Koleka Putuma is an author, a playwright, an editor, amentor, and she has become a cult figure in the activist poetry community. In a direct style that pulls no punches, she writes about homophobia and transphobia, gender and racism, while each line pulses with compassion and love. Putuma entered the literary world with a bang in 2017, with her debut collection Collective Amnesia, which explores South Africa’s historic racism and its consequences, both institutionally and within the culture. Since then, she has published two more critically acclaimed poetry collections.This is Putuma's reading list:* Vuyelwa Maluleke* Maneo Mohale, Everything Is a Deathly Flower* Busisiwe Mahlangu, Surviving Loss* Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower*Arinze Ifeakandu, God’s Children Are Little Broken Things* D’bi.youngThe host in this episode is Åshild Lappegård LahnEditing and production by the House of LiteratureMusic by Ibou Cissokho The House of Literature’s project to promote African literature is supported by NORAD.

After the second world war, many of the biggest war criminals from Nazi Germany flee to South America in the hope of avoiding penalty. One of them is the SS officer Walter Rauff, who settles in Chile, and ends up with a central role in the bloody regime of Augusto Pinochet. How are these two men, their stories and destinies, connected?In his loose trilogy about European history, lawyer Philippe Sands takes us through the major developments of international law, from the Holocaust up to our time. Beginning with East West Street, the trilogy combines the historical, judicial and personal in a literary masterpiece about one of humanity’s most commendable ambitions: That the people behind history’s biggest crimes are held accountable.Now, Sands concludes his trilogy with 38 Londres Street, about the dictator Augusto Pinochet, the Nazi Walter Rauff and the international legal system’s long effort to catch up with them.Philippe Sands is a French British writer and human rights lawyer specializing in international law. He has written several award-winning books, and as a lawyer, he has argued a number of high-profile cases in international courts, including for Mauritius, the Phillipines and recently for Palestine’s self-determination.Critic and writer Karin Haugen is among those who have followed Sands’s work and writing over the years. Now, she will join him for a conversation about the dictator, the Nazi, and the long arm of the law.This conversation took place during the Festival of Norwegian Non-Fiction 2025.