Author Beate Grimsrud is dead

Beate Grimsrud passed away in Stockholm after a period of illness. She turned 57 years old.

- Norway has lost a great writer. As a publisher, we have also lost a dear friend. We will miss the long conversations, the voice in the phone and the wakeful intellect, says the editor of Norwegian fiction at the publisher Cappelen Damm, John Erik Riley, to Norwegian NTB.

Beate Grimsrud also wrote drama for stage, radio and film.

Grimsrud debuted in 1989 with the short story collection "There are limits to what I do not understand" and the childhood depiction "I sneak past an ax" became successful in both Sweden and Norway.

The big breakthrough came with the novel "A fool free" (2010), which was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize.

Together with Inger Alfvén, she has written six children's books.

The author Vigdis Hjort tells the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet that she learned a lot from Grimsrud, which she knew for many years.

- She was very capable and funny and at the same time very smart, fearless and uncompromising. We had many discussions, especially about the author's responsibilities and literary ethics. There we were different, and I learned a lot from Beate.

Beate Grimsrud has previously talked about her cancer diagnosis in the P1 program What I can't do is die. Also the novel "I suggest we wake up" from 2019 deals with a breast cancer diagnosis.