New games! PlayTrivia andBirthle.

The Most Famous

WRITERS from Norway

Icon of occuation in country

This page contains a list of the greatest Norwegian Writers. The pantheon dataset contains 5,755 Writers, 77 of which were born in Norway. This makes Norway the birth place of the 17th most number of Writers behind Greece and Czechia.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Norwegian Writers of all time. This list of famous Norwegian Writers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Norwegian Writers.

Photo of Henrik Ibsen

1. Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906)

With an HPI of 78.93, Henrik Ibsen is the most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 111 different languages on wikipedia.

Henrik Johan Ibsen (; Norwegian: [ˈhɛ̀nrɪk ˈɪ̀psn̩]; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time, as well of one of the most influential playwrights in Western literature more generally. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, When We Dead Awaken, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House was the world's most performed play in 2006.Ibsen's early poetic and cinematic play Peer Gynt has strong surreal elements. After Peer Gynt Ibsen abandoned verse and wrote in realistic prose. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's later work examined the realities that lay behind the façades, revealing much that was disquieting to a number of his contemporaries. He had a critical eye and conducted a free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. In many critics' estimates The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm are "vying with each other as rivals for the top place among Ibsen's works"; Ibsen himself regarded Emperor and Galilean as his masterpiece.Ibsen is often ranked as one of the most distinguished playwrights in the European tradition, and is widely regarded as the foremost playwright of the nineteenth century. He influenced other playwrights and novelists such as George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce. He is widely regarded as the most important playwright since Shakespeare. Shaw claimed that the new naturalism of Ibsen's plays had made Shakespeare obsolete.Ibsen was born into the merchant elite of the port town of Skien and grew up as a member of the Ibsen–Paus extended family. Through the Paus family, Ibsen's parents were raised as social "near-siblings." Although most of Ibsen's plays are set in Norway—often in places reminiscent of Skien—Ibsen lived for 27 years in Italy and Germany and rarely visited Norway during his most productive years. Ibsen's dramas were informed by his background, and he often modelled or named characters after family members. Ibsen wrote his plays in Dano-Norwegian, and they were published by the Danish publisher Gyldendal. He was the father of Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen.

Photo of Knut Hamsun

2. Knut Hamsun (1859 - 1952)

With an HPI of 77.13, Knut Hamsun is the 2nd most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 99 different languages.

Knut Hamsun (4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective and environment. He published more than 23 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, works of non-fiction and some essays. Hamsun is considered to be "one of the most influential and innovative literary stylists of the past hundred years" (ca. 1890–1990). He pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, and influenced authors such as Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Maxim Gorky, Stefan Zweig, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, John Fante, James Kelman, Charles Bukowski and Ernest Hemingway. Isaac Bashevis Singer called Hamsun "the father of the modern school of literature in his every aspect—his subjectiveness, his fragmentariness, his use of flashbacks, his lyricism. The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun". Since 1916, several of Hamsun's works have been adapted into motion pictures. On 4 August 2009, the Knut Hamsun Centre was opened in Hamarøy.The young Hamsun objected to realism and naturalism. He argued that the main object of modernist literature should be the intricacies of the human mind, that writers should describe the "whisper of blood, and the pleading of bone marrow". Hamsun is considered the "leader of the Neo-Romantic revolt at the turn of the 20th century", with works such as Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894), and Victoria (1898). His later works—in particular his "Nordland novels"—were influenced by the Norwegian new realism, portraying everyday life in rural Norway and often employing local dialect, irony, and humour. Hamsun only published one poetry collection, The Wild Choir, which has been set to music by several composers. Hamsun had strong anti-English views, in part due to the treatment of Norway during World War I, and openly supported Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, travelling to meet Hitler during the German occupation of Norway. Due to his professed support for the occupation of Norway and the Quisling regime, he was charged with treason after the war. He was not convicted, officially due to psychological problems and issues relating to old age, but was issued a heavy fine in 1948. Hamsun's last book, On Overgrown Paths, authored in semi-imprisonment in Landvik, concerned his treatment and rebuttal of accusations of his mental ineptness.

Photo of Jo Nesbø

3. Jo Nesbø (1960 - )

With an HPI of 68.22, Jo Nesbø is the 3rd most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 48 different languages.

Jon "Jo" Nesbø (Norwegian: [ˈjuː ˈnɛ̀sbøː]; born 29 March 1960) is a Norwegian writer, musician, and former football player and reporter. More than 3 million copies of his novels had been sold in Norway as of March 2014, and he had sold over 50 million copies worldwide by 2021, making him the most successful Norwegian author of all time. His work has been translated into more than 50 languages. Known primarily for his crime novels featuring Inspector Harry Hole, Nesbø is also the main vocalist and songwriter for the Norwegian rock band Di Derre. In 2007 he released his first children's book, Doktor Proktors Prompepulver (English translation: Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder). The 2011 film Headhunters is based on Nesbø's novel Hodejegerne (The Headhunters).

Photo of Jostein Gaarder

4. Jostein Gaarder (1952 - )

With an HPI of 66.13, Jostein Gaarder is the 4th most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 55 different languages.

Jostein Gaarder (Norwegian: [ˈjùːstæɪn ˈɡòːɖər]; born 8 August 1952) is a Norwegian intellectual and author of several novels, short stories, and children's books. Gaarder often writes from the perspective of children, exploring their sense of wonder about the world. He often utilizes metafiction in his works and constructs stories within stories. His best known work is the novel Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy (1991). It has been translated into 60 languages; there are over 40 million copies in print.

Photo of Ludvig Holberg

5. Ludvig Holberg (1684 - 1754)

With an HPI of 65.21, Ludvig Holberg is the 5th most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 45 different languages.

Ludvig Holberg, Baron of Holberg (3 December 1684 – 28 January 1754) was a writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright born in Bergen, Norway, during the time of the Dano–Norwegian dual monarchy. He was influenced by Humanism, the Enlightenment and the Baroque. Holberg is considered the founder of modern Danish and Norwegian literature. He was also a prominent Neo-Latin author, known across Europe for his writing. He is best known for the comedies he wrote in 1722–1723 for the Lille Grønnegade Theatre in Copenhagen. Holberg's works about natural and common law were widely read by many Danish law students over two hundred years, from 1736 to 1936.

Photo of Ivar Aasen

6. Ivar Aasen (1813 - 1896)

With an HPI of 64.86, Ivar Aasen is the 6th most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 51 different languages.

Ivar Andreas Aasen (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈîːvɑr ˈòːsn̩]; 5 August 1813 – 23 September 1896) was a Norwegian philologist, lexicographer, playwright, and poet. He is best known for having assembled one of the two official written versions of the Norwegian language, Nynorsk, from various dialects.

Photo of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

7. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832 - 1910)

With an HPI of 60.19, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson is the 7th most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 89 different languages.

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson ( BYURN-sən, Norwegian: [ˈbjø̂ːɳstjæːɳə ˈbjø̂ːɳsɔn]; 8 December 1832 – 26 April 1910) was a Norwegian writer who received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit". The first Norwegian Nobel laureate, he was a prolific polemicist and extremely influential in Norwegian public life and Scandinavian cultural debate. Bjørnson is considered to be one of the four great Norwegian writers, alongside Ibsen, Lie, and Kielland. He is also celebrated for his lyrics to the Norwegian national anthem, "Ja, vi elsker dette landet". The composer Fredrikke Waaler based a composition for voice and piano (Spinnersken) on a text by Bjørnson, as did Anna Teichmüller (Die Prinzessin).

Photo of Alexander Kielland

8. Alexander Kielland (1849 - 1906)

With an HPI of 59.31, Alexander Kielland is the 8th most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Alexander Lange Kielland (Norwegian: [ɑɫɛˈksɑ̀ndər ˈlɑ̂ŋːə ˈçɛ̀lːɑn]; 18 February 1849 – 6 April 1906) was a Norwegian realistic writer of the 19th century. He is one of the so-called "The Four Greats" of Norwegian literature, along with Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Jonas Lie.

Photo of Kjell Askildsen

9. Kjell Askildsen (1929 - 2021)

With an HPI of 58.71, Kjell Askildsen is the 9th most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Kjell Askildsen (30 September 1929 – 23 September 2021) was a Norwegian writer probably best known for his minimalistic short stories.

Photo of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen

10. Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812 - 1885)

With an HPI of 58.34, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen is the 10th most famous Norwegian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (15 January 1812 – 5 January 1885) was a Norwegian writer and scholar. He and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe were collectors of Norwegian folklore. They were so closely united in their lives' work that their folk tale collections are commonly mentioned only as "Asbjørnsen and Moe".

Pantheon has 77 people classified as writers born between 900 and 2006. Of these 77, 27 (35.06%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living writers include Jo Nesbø, Jostein Gaarder, and Herbjørg Wassmo. The most famous deceased writers include Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun, and Ludvig Holberg. As of April 2022, 10 new writers have been added to Pantheon including Dagny Juel, Þorbjörn Hornklofi, and Knud Knudsen.

Living Writers

Go to all Rankings

Deceased Writers

Go to all Rankings

Newly Added Writers (2022)

Go to all Rankings

Which Writers were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Writers since 1700.