The American, British, Canadian and Australia literary worlds have been taken by the popular novel that first appeared in Norway in 2009, titled “My Struggle” and became so popular that a PR white lie and gimmick and total fib began circulating outside Norway and engineered mostly by British editor Geoff Mulligan to the effect that some Oslo offices declared “Knausgaard-free days,” on which “you weren’t allowed to talk about his work by the water cooler. Geoff Mulligan, Mr. Knausgaard’s British publisher, told this lie and PR gimmick to a reporter with a wink and a smile and the reporter sent it her dispatch and it was picked up by 101 newspapers around the world which reported this fake 'event." In fact, I have it on very good authority from literary critics inside Norway that there were never ever ever any Knaussgaard-free days at any office or compnay and that the whole thing is a good-natured but false lie which the foreign media, being lazy and not prone to fact checking, took hook line and sinker, and it was reported in the New York Times and other places as FACT. But in almost every instance, the media uses weasel words such as "it was reported" or "reportedly" or "according to Geoff Mulligan" etc but not once is a Norwegian newspaper or literary critic or book industry reporter inside Norway quoted on this because in fact it was just a PR gimmick to create buzz outside Norway and especially in NYC and London and Sydney and Toronto.
This post has been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content are presented solely by the author, and JewishBoston assumes no responsibility for them. Want to add your voice to the conversation? Publish your own post here. MORE