Prosalong: Oppstandelsen – fra kvalik til kvartfinale

What a World Cup summer it was!

After a 28-year wait, Norway was finally back in the World Cup, and the national team played all the way to the quarter-finals. Football fever gripped the whole of Norway. People who otherwise didn't follow football suddenly became avid football supporters, and for a few weeks Norway was one united we. We cheered, rowed, painted our faces red, white and blue and shared football moments that many of us will never forget.
But what happened?
In "The Resurrection – about the national team's curse, the way back and the best qualification of all time", Alfred Fidjestøl has followed Ståle Solbakken and the national team closely on their way back to the World Cup. With unique access to the national team's inner circle, he takes us where the cameras cannot go: into the tactical meetings, during the tough training sessions and into the nerve-wracking countdown to the match. Through eight historic matches, he tells the story of how Solbakken and his chosen ones constantly broke new barriers – and after 28 years finally qualified for the World Cup. This is the story of how Norwegian football was resurrected – told from inside the dressing room.

And the story doesn't stop there.
During this summer's World Cup, Fidjestøl has once again gained access to the national team's inner circle, and this fall the sequel to Oppstandelsen will be released, where he takes us inside Norway's World Cup adventure, with direct access to the team, the support staff and the decisive moments.
The new book will not be out when we meet on September 30, but the work on it provides a very special starting point for the conversation, because what really happened when Norway was finally back on football's biggest stage? How was the World Cup adventure experienced from the inside – and what does it tell us about a national team that has gone from curse to resurrection?

On Wednesday, September 30, Fidjestøl meets journalist, author and football enthusiast Tom Stalsberg at Litteraturhuset in Skien Stalsberg also led this spring's literary World Cup salon and has himself reviewed "Oppstandelsen" to a score of five in Dagbladet, where he described the book as full of "unique drops and insights."

There will be a conversation about the men's national team's path back to the World Cup and this summer's Norwegian football adventure, but also about football off the field. Who really controls the world's biggest sport? What happens when football meets politics, money and power? And what role do FIFA and the increasingly controversial president Gianni Infantino play?

The event is a collaboration between Litteraturhuset in Skien and NFFO.

Ticket prices:
Ordinary: 250,-
LIS member: 200,-
Student (with valid proof) 150,-

The event is free for members of the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association.

Photo: (Stalsberg, T): Lars Eivind Bones. (Fidjestøl, A): Agnete Brun