Torgrim Eggen - Selected Title Author
We are happy to present our selected title author Torgrim Eggen. He has written Blood (original title: Blodet). The book is one of NORLA’s Selected Titles of the autumn 2025.
What is your book about?
Blood is about the Kvitilshov brothers, who grow up in Gudbrandsdalen in the 1930s in a “patriotically” minded family. In 1941-42, both boys, aged 16 and 17, enlist in the Waffen-SS to fight against Stalin and Bolshevism on the Eastern Front. Both survive, and one of them even receives the Iron Cross for bravery in combat, but when the war ends, they are imprisoned and convicted of treason. The novel follows them throughout the rest of their lives.
What inspired you to write this book?
In this case, the choice was easy: the material was always there. The story is based on members of my own family and is rooted in “real life” – at least roughly 60-70 percent of it.
Who is this book for?
In part, it will certainly appeal to the large group of older men who “devour everything” written about the war. At the same time, however, more than two-thirds of the book is a coming-of-age novel about being young in a dangerous time and about how the choices one makes are shaped by circumstance and conviction. It’s a book for young people who may find themselves tempted by fascism – or who, conversely, want to fight against it.
What sets your book apart from others in the same genre?
There are several works, mostly academic, that examine who the “front fighters” were and what they experienced. World War II itself has, of course, been described countless times. But I don’t think there is a book – at least not in Norwegian – that gets this close to and this intimate with two individual destinies while also striving to capture the spirit of the age and the events that shaped them. It took quite a few pages to do this justice.
Read more
See full presentation of the book here
Read more about the author here
See all NORLA’s Selected Titles for the autumn 2025 here
