Johan Harstad was born in 1979 in Stavanger, Norway.
Publishing
He debuted in 2001 with the prose collection Herfra blir du bare eldre (From Here You Only Get Older). In 2002 published a collection of short stories titled Ambulanse (Ambulance) . In 2005 he published his first novel, Buzz Aldrin, hvor ble det av deg i alt mylderet? (Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All The Confusion?), which was later made into a tv-series. In 2007 he published the novel Hässelby, which earned him the Norwegian Youth’s Critics Prize. In 2008 he published his first Young Adult novel Darlah – 172 timer på månen (172 Hours on The Moon), for which he received the Brage Award, a prestigious Norwegian literary award. He was nominated for another Brage award for Osv. (Etc.), published in 2010, a play in two parts about the wars and genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, Vietnam and Checnya.
Awards
Norwegian Youth’s Critics Prize
Brage Award (Twice)
Playwright in Residence at the National Theatre in Oslo
Nominated for the Ibsen Award
Other Interesting Things
The rights to his books have been sold to more than twenty countries, including USA, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Brasil, Australia, China and Korea.
As a playwright Harstad has written and published six plays, been the first Playwright in Residence at the National Theatre in Oslo and nominated for the Ibsen Award, the only Norwegian Award given to playwrights.
Johan also works as a graphic designer and occasionally creates music and different kinds of art under the name LACKTR, a semi-fictious art-organization he founded in 2002.
He is the drummer of the band Schtraf, going by the name of Bruno Schmetterling.
More about Johan Harstad
Wikipedia page in English
Three short stories from Ambulance in English
Seven Stories Press’ web page about the novel uzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All The Confusion?
A trailer (of sorts) for the tv-series based on the Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All The Confusion?
Little, Brown’s web page about 172 Hours on The Moon
Little, Brown’s Facebook page about 172 Hours on The Moon, with a lot of pictures, short video clips from the character’s mission to the moon.