In partnership with the Center for Writers and Translators, Shakespeare and Company, and NORLA, we are delighted to present Norway’s most celebrated contemporary writer, Gunnhild Øyehaug, in conversation on her latest collection of short fiction Evil Flowers.

Across its 25 stories, Øyehaug renovates the form again and again, confirming Lydia Davis’s observation that each of her fictions is “a formal surprise, smart and droll.” Inspired by Charles Baudelaire, the groundbreaking book features an ornithologist whose brain slips into the toilet bowl, medicinal leeches that ingest information from fiberoptic cables, and an elderly woman who is trapped with a ravenous lion. Join us as we step inside Øyehaug’s wonderfully imaginative mind and explore the marvelous new directions she has paved for short fiction.

Learn more: 

Gunnhild Øyehaug was described in a 2017 New Yorker review as a “master of the short story.” Find out why. 

Want to discover her innovative style first-hand? Read an excerpt from Evil Flowers.

About the speakers:

Gunnhild Øyehaug is an award-winning Norwegian poet, essayist, and fiction writer whose work has been translated into many languages. She teaches creative writing in Bergen. 

Daniel Medin is an editor and professor of comparative literature at the American University of Paris.

Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Øyehaug and Medin will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.

Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.

Copies of Evil Flowers will be available for purchase at the Library in the week leading up to this event and while the event takes place, generously provided by Smith&Son. All sales support this local independent bookstore.

Attendees will have the opportunity to have their copy signed following the conversation.