We still breathe

Yohan Shanmugaratnam is a Norwegian journalist and non-fiction writer. His first book Vi puster fortsatt (We still breathe) (2020) about racism and roots was listed as one of the ten best books of the year by the newspaper Aftenposten (the second largest newspaper in Norway). In 2021 Shanmugaratnam and photographer Line Ørnes Søndergaard published the book Bruddet (The Split) at Forlaget Press. The documentary about a town in England during Brexit won the Bookstore Association’s prize for best non-fiction. His latest book is Hjertet i to (Heart in two), a critically acclaimed portrait of the Norwegian rap group Karpe. It was published by Bonnier Norsk Forlag in 2022. Shanmugaratnam, who has a MA degree in human geography from the University of Oslo, has worked for the daily Klassekampen since 2004. He was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, where his father is from, and spent parts of his childhood in his mother’s native country Japan.