July 22 in Literature and Arts: Åsne Seierstad, Britt Bildøen and Edvard Munch
摘要
This chapter discusses Åsne Seierstad’s non-fiction narrative One of Us: The Story of a Massacre and its Aftermath (2013/2015) and Britt Bildøen’s Seven Days in August: A Novel (2014). While the chapter argues that Seierstad’s purpose with One of Us is to document, and to some extent explain, the crime committed by Anders Behring Breivik, it suggests that Bildøen’s novel is a significant attempt to negotiate the complex processes of grief experienced by the main character Sofie and her second husband eight years after the terrorist attacks. As the novel contains references to artworks by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch that are related to Sofie’s memory of her lost child, the discussion includes observations on Munch’s colour woodcut Two Human Beings: The Lonely Ones. The conclusion reflects on implications for memorialisation through the non-fictional and fictional narratives considered in the chapter.