Eystein Eggen (5 January 1944 in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

– 19 November 2010) was a Norwegian writer. Eggen was from a family with several other contemporary Norwegian writers. Eggen made his debut with a book about the life and death of general

Carl Gustav Fleischer Carl Gustav Fleischer (28 December 1883 – 19 December 1942Fleischer 1947, p. 216) was a Norwegian general and the first land commander to win a major victory against the Germans in the Second World War. Having followed the Norwegian governm ...

, the Norwegian commander in chief at

Narvik () is the third-largest List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Nordland Counties of Norway, county, Norway, by population. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Narvik (town), town of Narvik. Some of the notable villag ...

during the

Battles of Narvik The Battles of Narvik were fought from 9 April to 8 June 1940, as a naval battle in Ofotfjord and as a land battle in the mountains surrounding the north Norwegian town of Narvik, as part of the Norwegian Campaign of the Second World War. Th ...

in 1940. He also wrote a portrait of the writer

Agnar Mykle Agnar Mykle (8 August 1915 – 15 January 1994) was a Norwegian author. He became one of the most controversial figures in Norwegian literature in the 20th century. Early life Born in Norway's third largest city, Trondheim, Mykle was often s ...

, his father-in-law. Eggen wrote novels with topics from medieval Norway. In 1993 Eggen published ''The boy from Gimle''—the autobiographical story of a Norwegian childhood in a Nazi milieu. As a consequence, two years later the Norwegian

war children War children are those born to a local parent and a parent belonging to a foreign military force (usually an occupying force, but also military personnel stationed at military bases on foreign soil). Having a child by a member of a belligerent ...

got an official excuse. Eggen became a State Scholar in 2003. "He is a symbol of an entire generation", the spokesman for the

Norwegian Labour Party The Labour Party (; , A or Ap; ), formerly The Norwegian Labour Party (, DNA), is a Social democracy, social democratic List of political parties in Norway, political party in Norway. It is positioned on the centre-left of the political spectru ...

said in parliament. Eggen's father was the Norwegian editor-in-chief of the Leitheft's Norse version during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

References

External links

Norwegian Government on Eggen
(in English)

(in Norwegian)
An interview with Eggen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eggen, Eystein 1944 births 2010 deaths People from Tolga, Norway Writers from Oslo Norwegian World War II memoirists 20th-century Norwegian novelists 21st-century Norwegian novelists