Knausgård was scared but fixed some errors, changed some names, removed a single person, and published the book without acquiescing to all requests. His brother and mother did not object, but Knausgård's father's family attempted legal intervention and wanted to block publication, calling the novel 'a book full of insinuations, untruths, false personal characteristics and disclosures'. He circulated the first book to about ten of the largest figures in the book before its release and offered to change their names. In writing the first book, Knausgård reflected that he did not consider the consequences of writing so candidly about his close relations until he paused on the passage about his grandmother. Knausgård, to The New Republic, April 2014 The difficult thing for me is that I want basically to be a good man. Knausgård's British publisher at the time was not interested in the book, and Knausgård did not protest the German translation publisher's decision to change the title in that region.

The book's editor, Geir Gulliksen, originally forbade Knausgård from using the title, but later changed his mind. The novel's Norwegian title, Min Kamp, is very similar to Hitler's Mein Kampf. Angell Øygarden eventually listened to 5,000 pages of the novel and proposed the series title, which he felt was perfect. Angell Øygarden felt that Knausgård needed encouragement to continue, and Knausgård felt that Angell Øygarden was essential to the project. Knausgård would call his friend and fellow writer Geir Angell Øygarden daily and read the work aloud. He wrote mainly to break his block with the other novel and thought that there would not be an audience for the work. History Īs he struggled to write a novel about his relationship with his father, Knausgård set upon a new project in early 2008: to write less stylistically and deliberately, and instead to 'write plainly about his life'. The books have led some of his relatives to make public statements against their inclusion in Knausgård's novels. Though categorized as fiction, the books situate Knausgård as the protagonist and his actual relatives as the cast, with their names mostly unchanged. The series is 3,600 pages long, and was finished when Knausgård was in his forties. In 2014 it had sold nearly 500,000 copies in Norway, or one copy for every nine Norwegian adults, and was published in 22 languages. My Struggle is a six-book autobiographical series by Karl Ove Knausgård outlining the 'banalities and humiliations of his life', his private pleasures, and his dark thoughts the first of the series was published in 2009.

Karl ove knausgaard books