Dorthe Nors (born 20 May 1970) is a Danish writer. She is the author of Soul, Karate Chop, Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, and Wild Swims.

Dorthe Nors
Nors at the Göteborg Book Fair, 2015
Born	(1970-05-20) 20 May 1970 (age 52) Herning, Denmark
Occupation	Author
Language	Danish, English
Education	Cand.mag.
Alma mater	Aarhus University
Genre	Literary fiction
Years active	2002–present
Website
www.dorthenors.dk
Literature portal

Background

Nors was born in Herning, Denmark, the youngest of three children. As a child, she enjoyed making up stories that her mother, a teacher and painter, would write down and read back to her. At the age of eleven, she began writing her own stories, poems, and plays.[1]

In 1999, Nors graduated from Aarhus University with a degree in literature and art history.[2][3]

Career

Before Nors' literary debut in her own name, she worked as a translator of Swedish crime novels, mostly books by author Johan Theorin.[4]

She made her debut in 2002, with the book Soul, published by Samlerens Forlag.[3] Her English-language following began in 2009, when selections from her short story collection Karate Chop were published in English. She became the first Danish writer to have a story published in The New Yorker, when it printed her story "The Heron" in 2013. In 2015, her first short story collection Karate Chop was published in English alongside So Much for That Winter, a joint publication of her novellas Minna Needs Rehearsal Space and Days.[1] Her second collection of short stories Wild Swims was published in English in 2021 by Graywolf Press.

In 2017, she was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize for her novel Mirror, Shoulder, Signal.

Personal life

Nors lived in Copenhagen for several years before moving back to Jutland in 2013.[1]

Bibliography

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (May 2020)

Novels

• Soul, Samlerens Forlag 2001 ISBN 87-568-1644-8
• Stormesteren, Samlerens Forlag 2003 ISBN 87-568-1727-4
• Ann Lie, 2005 ISBN 87-638-0247-3
• Minna mangler et øvelokale, Samlerens Forlag 2013 ISBN 978-87-638-2705-8

• Minna Needs Rehearsal Space, (translated by Misha Hoekstra), Pushkin Press 2017 ISBN 978-17-8227-434-6

• Spejl, skulder, blink, Gyldendal 2015 ISBN 978-87-021-8939-1

• Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, (translated by Misha Hoekstra), Graywolf Press 2018 ISBN 978-15-5597-808-2

Short fiction

Collections

• Hun kommer, Samlerens Forlag 2007
• Dage, Samlerens Forlag 2010 ISBN 978-87-638-1428-7
• Kantslag, Samlerens Forlag 2008 ISBN 978-87-638-0922-1

• Karate Chop, (translated by Martin Aitken), Graywolf Press 2014 ISBN 978-1-55597-665-1

• Kort over Canada, Gyldendal 2018 ISBN 978-87-022-6256-8

• Wild Swims, (translated by Misha Hoekstra), Graywolf Press 2021 ISBN 978-1-64445-043-7

Stories[5]

References

Further reading

• Mesure, Susie (28 February 2015). "'You can't escape your own existence. But you're not supposed to say that in Denmark', says Dorthe Nors". The Independent.
• Murphy, Dwyer (18 March 2014). "Getting Slapped Around: An Interview with Dorthe Nors". The Paris Review.

External links

Media related to Dorte Nors at Wikimedia Commons