Åsne Seierstad - One of Us

‘Revolusjonens røst’ (‘The Voice of the Revolution’) by Rudolf Nilsen. Translation by Anthony Thompson.

H. L. Mencken.

‘What is Political Correctness?’ by William S. Lind. From Lind (ed.), ‘Political Correctness’: A Short History of an Ideology (Alexandria: Free Congress Foundation, 2004). Lind’s original quotation begins ‘Most Americans look back at the 1950s as a good time.’

The Qur’an . Translated and with an introduction by Tarif Khaladi (London: Penguin Classics, 2008).

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

The Qur’an . Translated and with an introduction by Tarif Khaladi (London: Penguin Classics, 2008).

‘Baby’. Written by Christine Flores, Ashanti S. Douglas, Christopher Bridges, Keith Edward Crouch, Terius Nash, Christopher A. Stewart and Justin Bieber. © Rze Music Publishing, Pookietoots Publishing, Songs Of Universal Inc., Havana Brown Publishing, Universal Music Corp., Ludacris Worldwide Publishing Inc., Baeza Music LLC, Bieber Time Publishing, 2082 Music Publishing, Human Rhythm Music.

‘Childhood’. Written by Michael Jackson. © Mijac Music.

‘Nothing Else Matters’. Written by Andrew Michael Saidenberg, James Alan Hetfield, Nathianiel Raubenheimer and Lars Ulrich. © Cloud 9 Holland Music Publishing, Creeping Death Music, World Of Andy Music, Universal Music Corp.

‘Å Kunne æ Skrive’ by Lars Bremnes. Translation by Sarah Death.

‘Childhood’. Written by Michael Jackson. © Mijac Music.

The Qur’an . Translated and with an introduction by Tarif Khaladi (London: Penguin Classics, 2008).

‘Vi Suser Avgårde’. Written by Lars Lillo Stenberg.

‘Hallelujah’. Written by Leonard Cohen and Theresa Christina Calonge de Sa Mattos. © Bad Monk Publishing, Sony/ATV Songs LLC.

‘Helt om Natten, Helt om Dagen’. Written by Lars Vaular. Translation by Sarah Death.

‘Å Kunne æ Skrive’. Written by Lars Bremnes. Translation by Sarah Death.

Åsne Seierstadis an award-winning Norwegian journalist and writer known for her work as a war correspondent. She is the author of The Bookseller of Kabul , One Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal , and Angel of Grozny: Inside Chechnya . She lives in Oslo, Norway. You can sign up for email updates here.

The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War

A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal

With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia

The Bookseller of Kabul

Named among the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review , NPR, The Boston Globe , The Guardian , Buzzfeed , Publishers Weekly , and Men’s Journal

Finalist for the New York Public Library’s 2016 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism

“ One of Us has the feel of a nonfiction novel. Like Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood , it has an omniscient narrator who tells the story of brutal murders and, by implication, sheds light on the society partly responsible for them. Although those two books are beautifully written, I found One of Us to be more powerful and compelling… As Seierstad weaves the stories of Utoya’s campers with her central narrative about Breivik-revealing the mundane details of their family lives, their youthful ambitions, idealism and naiveté-the book attains an almost unbearable weight. This tragedy isn’t literary and symbolic; it’s the real thing… Seierstad has written a remarkable book, full of sorrow and compassion. After spending years away from home as a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq, bearing witness to the crimes of other nations, she has confronted Norway’s greatest trauma since the Nazi occupation, without flinching and without simplifying… One of Us must have been difficult to write, and yet from the opening pages it has an irresistible force.”

“The roughly 70 pages Ms. Seierstad devotes to [the attacks] are harrowing in their forensic exactitude… These scenes are balanced by moments of tremendous heroism, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t read the final half of One of Us with perpetually moist cheeks… The nonfiction horror story told in One of Us moves slowly, inexorably and with tremendous authority… The epilogue, about her methods, should be required reading in journalism schools… It’s said that exact detail is uniquely helpful when it comes to mending after terrible events. If it is true, as Stephen Jay Gould contended, that ‘nothing matches the holiness and fascination of accurate and intricate detail,’ then Ms. Seierstad has delivered a holy volume indeed.”

“Engrossing, important… There are many, many indelible images in Seierstad’s account… As hard as it is to read about the attack, as frustrating as it is to learn how many delaying mistakes the first responders made and as monstrous as Breivik is, [his victims] on that island that day were beautiful in their idealism. They deserve to be witnessed, which is the ultimate reason to read One of Us .”

“ One of Us is a masterpiece of journalism, a deeply painful chronicle of an inexplicable and horrifying attack that we’ll likely never understand… [A] brilliant, unforgettable book.”

“ One Of Us reads like a true crime novel, but it has the journalistic chops to back it up… Not only a stunning achievement in journalism, it’s a touchstone on how to write about tragedy with detail, honesty, and compassion.”

“Unforgettable.”

“A vivid, thoroughly researched, and suspenseful account of the 2011 massacre that killed 77 people in her native Norway… The book features evocative portraits of some of the victims and brims with vivid descriptions of the villages, city squares, buildings, and fjords of Norway, touching on the country’s politics, changing demographics, and cultural shifts. With a reporter’s passion for details and a novelist’s sense of story, Seierstad’s book is at once an unforgettable account of a national tragedy and a lively portrait of contemporary Norway.”

“Asne Seierstad’s One of Us is almost unbearable to read and absolutely impossible to turn away from: its account of an unthinkable tragedy is reported with staggering rigor and recounted with grace. It’s hard to leave this book without feeling incredible grief, without feeling shaken to the core, without feeling urged toward essential questions about what we call evil and how it comes to pass.”

“A chilling descent into the mind of mass murderer Anders Breivik… [Seierstad’s] explorations of Breivik… have the unsettling quality that readers will associate with novelist Stieg Larsson… [ One of Us ] packs all the frightening power of a good horror novel.”