Erika Fatland (b. 1983 in Haugesund, Norway) achieved her international breakthrough with Sovietistan (2015), a compelling description of her travels through the history, geography and modern-day societies of the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Sovietistan so far been translated into 12 languages.
Erika Fatland has an M.A. in social anthropology from the University of Oslo and the University of Copenhagen. In 2011 she published The Village of Angels, an in situ report from the small town of Beslan in the Caucasus, stricken by terror in 2004 with the loss of the lives of more than 300 schoolchildren and adults as a result. She is also the author of The Year Without a Summer, an insightful and thorough description of the solo terrorist attacks by Anders Behring Breivik in Oslo and on Utøya in 2011, and of the extraordinary year that ensued in Norwegian society. She has also written two children’s books. She speaks eight languages, including Russian. She lives in Oslo with her husband, also a writer.
Her new book, The Border, describes a captivating journey along the seemingly endless Russian border – from North Korea in the Far East to the north of Norway. The enormous cultural differences between the countries that the author visits are eclipsed by the one, common factor, which in different ways has defined them all: Living next door to Russia.
Named “One of the Best Norwegian authors under 35” in 2015.
Winner of the Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize for Nonfiction in 2015 for Sovietistan
Selected as one of the TEN NEW VOICES FROM EUROPE by Europe Literary Live in 2016
Winner of Wesselprisen 2016
Grensen (The Border) longlisted for “Ten Best Scandinavian Nonfiction Title since 2000” in 2018