Karl Ove Knausgaard's first novel,
Out of the World, was the first ever debut novel to win the Norwegian Critics' Prize and his second,
A Time for Everything, was widely acclaimed. The
My Struggle cycle of novels has been heralded as a masterpiece wherever it has appeared, and the first volume was awarded the prestigious Brage Prize.
Anselm Kiefer (1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horror of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah.