{"id":1476,"date":"2012-10-20T10:53:16","date_gmt":"2012-10-20T10:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=1476"},"modified":"2014-08-22T18:36:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T18:36:14","slug":"aasne-seierstad-a-brave-norwegian-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/aasne-seierstad-a-brave-norwegian-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c5sne Seierstad \u2013 A Brave Norwegian Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

These days \u00c5sne Seierstad, highly awarded journalist<\/strong> [shoornalIST] and bestselling author of Bokhandleren i Kabul<\/strong><\/em> (The Bookseller of Kabul<\/em>), is making headlines again: In a new investigational skriveprosjekt<\/strong> (writing project), she intends to unravel the question that keeps harassing the minds of countless Norwegians: What on earth caused Anders Behring Breivik to act in the way he did, murdering 77 innocent mennesker<\/strong> (human beings) in cold blood on July 22, 2011?<\/p>\n

I hope I\u2019ll never have to mention Breivik and his horrible deeds again on this blog. But as you can see, Ms Seierstad isn\u2019t redd<\/strong> (afraid) to tackle controversial and difficult subjects! In fact, she\u2019s probably one of the most modig<\/strong> (brave) Norwegians that I\u2019m aware of.<\/p>\n

Many Norwegian (and Swedish) tv spectators remember Seierstad from her coverage of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003: Standing in front of kameraet<\/strong> (the camera), with the mere protection of a hjelm<\/strong> (helmet) and skuddsikker vest<\/strong> (bulletproof waistcoat) she unwaveringly delivered siste nytt<\/strong> (the latest news) directly from the frontline, often with buildings collapsing i bakgrunnen<\/strong> (in the background), just a few meters away from her.<\/p>\n

Born in 1970, \u00c5sne studied Spanish<\/a> and Russian<\/a> (yes, keep it going! \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0) and id\u00e9historie<\/strong> (the history of ideas), before becoming a reporter and a journalist. She\u2019d spent some years in Russland<\/strong> (Russia) and Kina<\/strong> (China), when she was asked by NRK, the \u201dNorwegian BBC\u201d,\u00a0to cover Kosovo-krigen<\/strong> (the Kosovo war). That job led her to other high-risk tasks, like the said dekning<\/strong> (coverage) of the Iraq war, and subsequently even of the NATO invasion of Afghanistan and fight against the Taleban.<\/p>\n

It was during her time in Kabul, the Afghan capital, that Seierstad lived hjemme hos<\/strong> [YEMMeh hoos] (in the house of) a local bookseller, Shah Mohammed Rais. This became the inspiration of her bestelger<\/strong>, which spent 41 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Seierstad vividly describes Afghan society from the inside; in particular she feels sympathy towards the women, and indignation at the inferior way they, in her experience, were treated.<\/p>\n

Although never mentioned by name, Mr Rais felt indignation too. He felt Seierstad had exploited his gjestfrihet<\/strong>\u00a0[YESTfreehet] (hospitality) in order to write her \u201dblockbuster book\u201d. Furthermore, he did not like the way he and his family were exposed, arguing that even if they weren\u2019t called by their real names in the book, people in their vicinity in Kabul would understand who \u201dthe real bookseller and his family\u201d were.<\/p>\n

Rais opened a rettssak<\/strong> (lawsuit) against Seierstad, and even though she fought for her literary ytringsfrihet<\/strong> (freedom of speech), she lost the case in 2010. Seierstad was obliged to pay the Rais\u2019 wife a huge sum of penger<\/strong> (money) for intrusions into her privatliv<\/strong> (private life).<\/p>\n

But Seierstad is not the kind of person that gir opp<\/strong> [yeer op] (gives up, yields). She anket<\/strong> (appealed) to a higher court, and is as busy as ever defending\u00a0frihet<\/strong> (freedom) and speaking truth to power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These days \u00c5sne Seierstad, highly awarded journalist [shoornalIST] and bestselling author of Bokhandleren i Kabul (The Bookseller of Kabul), is making headlines again: In a new investigational skriveprosjekt (writing project), she intends to unravel the question that keeps harassing the minds of countless Norwegians: What on earth caused Anders Behring Breivik to act in the…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3668],"tags":[237978,252434,252435,252436],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-norway-and-the-world","tag-anders-behring-breivik","tag-asne-seierstad","tag-bokhandleren-i-kabul","tag-lawsuit"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1937,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions\/1937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}