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"Here you see the slab bags in the kingdom"

Everything you need to know about the Norwegian Writers Association Annual Meeting.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

At the Norwegian Writers' Association's annual meeting – hereafter called the Annual Meeting – I often associate with the thriller and crime writer Jørgen Gunnerud, the quiet poet Tone Hødnebø as well as the prose writer and small-town realist Jonny Halberg. With the latter – both of us have a trait of being restless and a little hyperactive – it becomes a bit like being back in junior high school; noisy, crooked, then there is something else with Gunnerud: He is a restrained tactician, former academic and of course student politician, son of a Frogner director and thus AKP's in the 70 century, one of the hardest I would think (and with his grumpy and reserved physiognomy would double the mark of being harsh), before again listening to his heart and not being led by his scholastic brain. And of course, like so many of those with a bourgeois origin who became active in the AKP, he proletarized and became a beer runner for Schous Brewery. And since I had been a civilian in Moss, I in Moss became acquainted with the youth-
political environment, including many AKP people – at one time Moss had to be the place in Norway where the AKP had many young supporters (the funny thing is that the only place the AKP has ruled – in the name, not in the favor – is in Turkey) , and at that time Solstad lived in Moss, Edvard Hoem was nearby, not to forget Jon Michelet, and the only worker AKP in Moss got hold of, later the author Asbjørn Elden, not to forget the clever doldisen Kim Brandstrup.
What Gunnerud knew about Moss, and about those who were active in the AKP, was not small, and after I got to know Gunnerud and got him to tell, he told me he had been a kind of political commissioner for the city (another commissary, by comparison, was Khrushchev during the siege of Stalingrad), or if it was the whole of Østfold county, I do not remember, but what he knew about Moss and those active in ml was impressive.

Jørgen Gunnerud
HodneboTone
Tone Hødnebø

But at all the Annual Meetings I have been to – which are not many, as I got it in my mind when I became a member in the early 80's that the Annual Meetings of the Norwegian Writers' Association were unbearably boring with a queue of bad writers who would complain that they did not get published their books anymore and that they never got

Oslo 20101125. Jonny Halberg is out with a new book, "A Norwegian tragedy". Photo: Erlend Aas / Scanpix
Jonny Halberg

scholarship; that is, meeting tormentors – then I have joined
Gunnerud (who has gone to the Norwegian Labor Party; not he alone, there are several old AKP members who have done the same, as SV is too soft for them, and lacks the political cynicism that the Labor Party has) and the small town realist Jonny Halberg and the kingdom unique poet Tone Hødnebø.
Gunnerud never makes a fuss, he just yawns about bad allegations from various meeting tormentors, he is an avid strategist at the Annual Meetings and a wise speaker, without saying a word, then loudly, about the Annual Meeting's chronic drunkenness (here I do not mention the name of the piety and to be in solidarity with my colleagues, because after I was elected to the Literary Council of DnF – I sat there for six years – I went to the Annual Meetings and discovered, despite drunks and meeting tormentors, that it was nice there), or if various half-asleep colleagues, even before tonight's big party (which I will return to without blaming anyone – just throw some shit).
I remember the comment from a vigilant writer who looked across the room and said, "Here everyone has a diagnosis," or another who jokingly said, "Here you see the slabs in the kingdom."

The dictatorship of the annual meeting the chair of the meeting is usually in his ace like a minor Napoleon, if not the whole Annual Meeting would have been chaotic and no one would have remembered who should say what, or whose turn it would be to say what – what then? Exactly, so our Idiamine chairman had no choice but to be strict and crack down on the slightest instance of unreasonableness and the troublemakers who failed to stay within a liberal speaking time but continued as if time were unlimited, or again and again asked for the word, as the aforementioned drunkenness – they were clubbed down, not to mention a steady stream of idiotic publishers, and they, it should also be said, who came up with interesting posts and suggestions.
What is a recurring theme from the rostrum – and it is not to be misunderstood, nor to disagree with – is that the scholarships are too small, and that the publishers are stingy with the fee, and that there is crime over a low shoe; the few times a poet speaks and tells about poor sales, almost no reviews and few who offer readings, no one is surprised, not even those who sleep, it goes without saying, or the one drunk who did not get it with himself, and who loudly asked for a replay, and what was repeated was that the chairman thunders the chairman's club on the table so that the water carafe jumped.
Then there was a coffee break, and I greeted colleagues I had not seen in a long time; one of them was completely white in the face and looked as if she had a bout of acute rheumatism, and as I asked, I was told that she again, and now in old age, had been divorced, and could not write one word. Then it was he who always arrives late and who hurried in with a cup dancing in the plate in one hand, and a purse in the other; it looked as if he had forgotten to comb himself, and under the unbuttoned coat the shirt was partly down in his trousers; on one shoe he had forgotten to tie the lace; he mumbled something as he went up the stairs to the conference room.

Last part av the first day we were divided into groups, for us to discuss in the various publishers' writers' clubs, so that in part of the hall there were those who were at the writers' club until October, Aschehoug, then Cappelen Damm, then Samlaget and finally Gyldendal, which at this Annual Meeting had the most members, that is, Gyldendal with the imprint Kolon (where it had become of Time, which Gyldendal owns, I do not remember); but since Kolon was with me, I continued to hang out with Gunnerud, Halberg and Tone Hødnebø.
The whole point of author clubs is to get the publishers' management talking, and to have a direct contact with the marketing department – which is perhaps the most secret of all the publisher's departments; what in the world were they doing, and then all the accusations came on the assembly line, directed at those who were not there, and those who knew something about the secretive marketing department, willingly told away. Everything that happened in closed rooms and that was new to us was revealed, but with a stubborn pen, so to speak – and again a nemesis appeared: the enigmatic book advice, since it is they, whoever they are, who decides who will be this year's winner (then it's sales that are talked about, and then I always fall off) – and those who could have sold a lot (not just crime) started shouting in anger; it was as if it was starting to smoke from several heads, and a commotion grew before it died out and we ended the meeting to have a well-deserved beer at the nearest hotel bar before the evening's big party.
What became the chin at the evening's big party, was that the hotel – which has Swedish owners (if not the whole hotel, then at least where we party), and often there were some who had had too much to drink too early, after dinner, after today's speech and after the thank-you-for-the-food speech, which is often funny – was stopped by, I was about to say plainclothes Securitas guards, who almost with a police-like behavior stopped those who had been given too much to drink too soon, and thus were none of the other guests got booze, a drink, or anything that was above the wine percentage. Then there were many who went, as those of us who did not start too early, pulled down to the other bars in the hotel.
After dancing and lots of good food, the various late-night parties come to various hotel rooms; they can sometimes be very lively and interesting. Once, as I remember with horror, since I had forgotten that I had grown old and would not give up, and as it is called "in good company time goes fast" and before I knew it it was well past midnight, and it became even more past midnight, finally towards dawn; I managed to get to bed at half past six in the morning, and set the alarm clock at ten, to catch breakfast before the next meeting.
There is something that Kafka has described as "being seasick on land", but without the seasickness of the seasick, only its rocking gait in the body, which can be disgusting – and it is always worth a study to see those who come strangling from the breakfast buffet , a little messy and powerful, as I was, in a hangover; as if one has passed a wall of intoxication and come to the back of it, strangely intoxicated, not quite drunk, not half drunk, not dritings, just something in between; a kind of mild filling, and not at all without humor; sarcasm in my case, and noisy with other colleagues who were just as intoxicated, or who had penetrated the same intoxication wall. But not Gunnerud – he had gone to bed at the right time, and he knows what age requires; there he is sane.

On the latter on the day of the meeting, there were elections for those who were nominated to sit on the board, on the nomination committee and the literary council. I usually come up with silly and hopeless suggestions about choosing those who were not nominated, and the name that most often recurred was my friend and colleague Jonny Halberg, and not just because I was bored; I blamed the hangover that made me joke, until Gunnerud stopped smiling and Tone Hødnebø whimpered and Jonny Halberg was embarrassed.

… And then all the accusations came on the assembly line, directed at those who were not there.

Finally, this year's winner of Vesaas 'debut award was announced, and after the award had been presented and the award winner had descended from the podium with a diploma, flowers and his editor in tow, the chairman of the association came up to announce this year's winner of the Norwegian Writers' Association's Freedom of Expression Award. , which has many times gone to writers / journalists who sit behind bars and turn around the world. This prize, which is 200 kroner, was given to DnF's centenary in 000 (by Åse Kleveland – then the price was 1994, but later it has doubled); usually not the prize winner, only his family, and an interpreter who reads out the speech of thanks, probably written down in a miserable and terrifying way; I am always moved by these speeches, and by the fact that it is my association that awards the freedom of expression award.


Sunde is a writer and essayist.

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