Linn Ullmann
Biography
The Norwegian author Linn Karin Beate Ullmann (born 1966) is the daughter of Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann and Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman. She is a graduate of New York University, where she studied English literature and also began work on her Ph.D. She returned to Norway in 1990 to pursue a career in journalism.
Her first novel Before You Sleep was published in 1998. Her second  novel, Stella Descending (2001) received glowing reviews. Her third novel Grace was published in 2002 and won the prominent literary award “The reader’s prize” in Norway and was named one of the ten best novels of that year by the prestigious newspaper “Weekendavisen” in Denmark.
In 2007, Grace was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the UK.
Ullmann's fourth novel, A Blessed Child, was published in the fall of 2005, and was shortlisted for the Brage Price, one of Norway's most prestigious literary awards.
Linn Ullmann is currently working as a journalist and a regular columnist in Norway’s leading newspaper Aftenposten. Her novels have been published internationally.
In 2007, Linn Ullmann was awarded the prestigeous Norwegian Amalie Skram prize, named after one of Norway's greatest female writers ever.
Before You Sleep (1998)
(Norwegian title: Før du sovner.) Before You Sleep was originally written in Norwegian. While it was not viewed as controversial in Norway, American reviewers have regarded it as a "detailed and sexually frank novel." Such labels aside, Before You Sleep is a great and strong story of a Norwegian family, Blom, with strong and also somewhat eccentric women,   that spans several generations. The story moves from Oslo to Brooklyn, both places well known to the author.
The story is complicated. It is told, over time, from the mouth of one of the key characters in the book, Karin.
It is about relations inside and out of the family, about motherhood, marriage, emotions, love, and even infidelity.
Before You Sleep is an exceptional debut book. It is very well worth reading. Linn Ullman tells her story in a way that makes the characters come alive, and make you sympathize with their strange actions and understand their emotions.
“Of this autumns literary output, novelist Linn Ullmann is the wickedest and wittiest, and
because she writes with a silent sincerity and merges all this with wit, intelligence and a
generous picture of human beings, the novel is a real pleasure to read.”
CECILIE WINGER,
FÆDRELANDSVENNEN (Norway)
“Before You Sleep is infernally well written. The debutante, Linn Ullmann, has, from page
one, found her own form and language, consistent in style until the end.”
GT (Sweden)
Stella Descending (2001)
  (Norwegian title: Når jeg er hos deg.) Stella falls from the roof of a building. Martin, who was up there together with her, remains standing. Martin has been her companion of 10 years and is the father of one of her two children. Did he push Stella? Or did he try to catch her and steady her? What happened up there, really?
So begins Linn Ullmann’s tale of Stella in Stella Descending — jealous wife, forbearing lover, angelic
nurse, unloved daughter, devoted mother, and finally, a woman possessed of a secret now forever
lost to the living. Stella’s life unfolds in the recollections of those she has left behind,
and we observe the fabric of many lives unraveling. One item at a time, we gradually come to understand how precarious her life was behind its facade of
loveliness and order.
Stella Descending is an interesting and rewarding book.
Order Når jeg er hos deg, by Linn Ullmann, in Norwegian fra Bokkilden.
”... her talent is as unique as it is prodigious. Her first novel, Before You Sleep, was received
to international acclaim. Her second, so often an author's stumbling block, confirms Ullmann
as a writer of empathy and poise. In spare, beautifully crafted prose, Stella Descending
whittles away the deceptions that pervade our intimate relationships to expose a gnawing
isolation from which only a temporary respite seems possible. It is a painful, deeply
distressing novel and yet its cumulative impact produces the opposite - the kind of elation you
can get only in the presence of great art.”
CAMERON WOODHEAD, THE AGE (Australia)
Grace (2002)
(Norwegian title Nåde.) Grace tells the story of Johan Sletten, a man whose life has not been the   greatest success story: an unhappy first marriage, an estranged son, and an undistinguished career as a journalist. An ordinary life, like most lifes. However, his second wife, Mai, has graced his life with love.
When told that he is terminally ill, with possibly only a few months left to him, Johan makes Mai promise to help him die “when the time comes”. But is this the true measure of love – to give the gift of death? And who decides when the time is right? Johan himself or his wife Mai? Death may come as a release, but to whom?
Linn Ullmann’s novel Grace portrays a passionate love affair and asks difficult questions about life, love and death. Finally, with cool precision, deep insight, and dark wit, it illustrates how the most ordinary of lifes can, in the end, be touched by grace.
Bestill Nåde fra Bokkilden!
”Linn Ullmann masterfully manages to fill even the spaces between the lines. With only a
small number of flashbacks and events making the text a convincing story, she succeeds in
creating an incredibly dense and intense atmosphere. Tension builds, leaving the reader
almost breathless, even though nothing really happens. Yet something does take place. The
reader feels the spark.You are drawn in by the tension between the two spouses: their anxiety,
their insecurity and their hopes. The stirring and dramatic ending of Linn Ullmann’s
empathetic novel Grace is surprising.”
NDR (Germany)
A Blessed Child (2005)
(Norwegian title: Et velsignet barn.) A Blessed Child too starts with a spectacular event: In the summer of 1979, something terrible happens on the beautiful, weather-beaten island of
 Hammarsö in the Baltic. Each year, the half-sisters Erika, Laura and Molly have spent the
summer here with their temperamental father, Isak Lövenstad.
Over time, the three young girls enter into
changing alliances with other summer guests. One of these is Ragnar, the boy
who is always running and who in some strange way is attracted to Isak.
No one assumes responsibility for what happens that summer, and more than twentyfive
years are to pass before the sisters return to the island – this time to visit their old father.
A Blessed Child is a rich portrayal of the life-stories of three
women, and also a fine portrait of a father – both merciless and
tender. A great book!
“A deeply disturbing and powerful novel with parallels to William Golding’s Lord of the
Flies … Ullmann’s pen offers a sober narrative, never too sentimental or obvious, keeps us
enthralled with hints, pulls us into the core from many different angles … merciless and
credible"
ALF KJETIL WALGERMO, VÅRT LAND (Norway)
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