Literature and Fiction · Hardback

Maybe It Helps

Norwegian title: Kanskje det hjelper

Nils-Øivind Haagensen

Nils-Øivind Haagensen is likely today's most popular poet of his generation in Norway. He is compared to the likes of Sweden's Göran Sonnevi, Chile's Pablo Neruda and America's Allen Ginsburg.

After two critically acclaimed collections, his authorship gained momentum with the first of what has since been called Adressebøkene. For a while, he was a veritable word machine for newspapers and delivered texts that lay within – but also crossed the borders of – most genres.

He was awarded the Sult Prize and was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize. When he gives readings, the venue is normally full to capacity. At Cappelen Damm, he published books such as Haruki og jeg, which was published in 2010. Maybe it helps assembles all the poetry Haagensen has published with Cappelen Damm from 1998 to 2010 – as well as a good deal of extra material from this period. Thus, we get a thick and beautiful book of hundreds of pages, equipped with a foreword by Johan Harstad and an interview with the author.

If you wish to translate one of Norway's most important poets, you may want to start here, with Nils-Øivind Haagensen.