10 great novels that take you to Oslo

1. Hunger by Knut Hamsun (1890)

"All of this happened while I was walking around starving in Christiania – this wondrous city that no one leaves before it has made its marks upon him."

Most Norwegians recognise this as the opening sentence of Hunger by Knut Hamsun. We follow a young man who struggle to maintain his respectability in the face of poverty and hostile surroundings. It's a true classic from Oslo, or Kristiania, as the city was called at the beginning of the 20th century.

St. Olav's Square 2, home of the protagonist's mysterious love interest Ylajali.

2. Little Lord by Johan Borgen (1955)

Little Lord portrays a boy named Wilfred Sagen as he grows up on Kristiania's privileged west side in the early 20th century. His adventures take us from his bourgeois home in Drammensveien, across the fjord by ferry to the pastoral Bygdøy islet, and by tram to Grünerløkka.

The darker parts of Wilfred's personality bring him to the poverty-stricken east part of Kristiania, so you also get acquainted with the city's dark and dangerous places back then. 

If you get hooked, you can follow Wilfred and Kristiania through two more books, which cover four decades and two world wars.

Getting on a ferry to Bygdøy to escape the hustle and bustle of the city is as popular today as it was at the beginning of the last century.

3. The Wolf's Lair by Oskar Braaten (1919)

This novel takes place around the same time as Little Lord, but shows you Kristiania/Oslo from a very different perspective: that of the east side working class.

Ten-year-old Jonny moves to a dark and dirty tenement with his mother, who is a factory worker. He feels completely out of place. Luckily, he meets Matilde, who knows how to tackle life in the "wolf’s lair".

Along the Akerselva river you find plenty of remnants from area’s industrial past, such as the café Hen Lovisa's House, named after a working class hero in one of Oskar Braaten's plays.

4. A girl I knew by Axel Jensen (1959)

A girl I knew introduces you to Jacob, who returns to Oslo after having bummed around the world working at sea. Surrounded by his intellectual friends, who drink and discuss at their regular cafe table at Theatercaféen, he struggles to find direction and meaning in life.

Against all odds he falls in love with Carrie, a girl from the rich Holmenkollen neighbourhood. This stirs up violent passion and big trouble in Jacob's life.

Champagne and oysters can still be enjoyed at Theatercafeen, just across from the National Theatre.

5. Beatles by Lars Saabye Christensen (1984)

This book might make you long for the 60s, and we suspect for Oslo as well. Each chapter is named after a song by The Beatles, and you get to follow four boys from the affluent Frogner neighbourhood as they discover their city, themselves and the rest of the world outside their privileged homes. Beatles was voted the ultimate Oslo novel by readers of local paper Aftenposten a few years ago.

Saabye Christensen has also written several other Oslo-based novels, including the popular Echoes of the city trilogy which he completed in 2019.

Frogner, the neighbourhood of the boys depicted in Beatles

6. Shyness and Dignity by Dag Solstad (1994)

Shyness and Dignity looks back at the life of the alienated high school teacher Elias Rukla. Following a failed attempt to engage his students in the reading of Henrik Ibsen, he explodes over a broken umbrella. For the rest of the novel Rukla wanders the streets of Oslo, reflecting on scenes and people from his life and the condition of society at large.

Shyness and Dignity takes the reader through a changing city. Here from Majorstuen.

7. Conscience by Trude Marstein (2018)

Monika is one of three sisters from your typical Norwegian family. She refuses to make conventional choices about education, relationships and family. The price she pays is a constant and agonising yearning to belong.

The novel follows Monika for nearly five decades. As soon as she is old enough to leave her hometown of Fredrikstad, she moves to Oslo. Her many short-lived romantic relationships lead her to explore, and live in, several neighbourhoods in the city, such as Majorstuen, Rodeløkka, Grunerløkka and Torshov.

Park life at Grunerløkka, enjoyed by real and fictional locals as well as visitors.

8. The Harry Hole thrillers by Jo Nesbø (1997-2019)

In the hugely popular crime fiction series about detective Harry Hole, hunts for the truth in terrible murder cases take you to many different parts of Oslo. In book after book, you are kept in suspense on whether the notoriously unreliable and sloppy hero will be able to solve the case.

The Redbreast is book number three in the series, and a good place to start if you'd like to explore Oslo as a crime scene. Even though the Hollywood film starring Michael Fassbender flopped, The Snowman is also a brilliant book.

When the first snow falls, the hunt for a killer begins ...

9. Our Street by Zeshan Shakar (2017)

Two second-generation immigrant boys with very different attitudes towards Norwegian society, education and life in general tell their stories in this book. Mohammed is ambitious and hardworking, and gets a scholarship to study social economics at the University of Oslo. Jamal is drawn to the fringes of society.

They belong to the same immigrant community and grow up on the same street in the suburb of Stovner in northeast Oslo. The book depicts their transition from childhood to adulthood and from suburbs to wider society in the 2000s.

Footpath among the treetops at Stovner 

10. Berge by Jan Kjærstad (2017)

Just like that of Saabye Christensen, Jan Kjærstad's rich bibliography has plenty of Oslo in it. We'll start at the end with Berge, his most recent and very well-received novel. If you can stomach lots of blood and very dirty politics, this story will keep you turning pages.

The plot starts out with the discovery of the bodies of Norwegian top-politician Arve Storefjeld and his family, brutally murdered at their cabin in Nordmarka. Is it a terrorist attack, or a personal vendetta? The story is told from the perspective of Nicolai Berge, the main suspect and ex-boyfriend of the murdered politician's daughter.

Nordmarka – normally a very peaceful place.