Per Petterson was born in Oslo in 1952 and worked for several years as an unskilled labourer, a bookseller, a writer and a translator until he made his literary debut in 1987 with the short story collection Ashes in my Mouth, Sand in my Shoes, which was widely acclaimed by critics. He made his literary breakthrough in 2003 with the prizewinning novel Out Stealing Horses, which has been translated into forty-nine languages so far and won many prizes. His second novel To Siberia was published to critical acclaim in 2008.Don Bartlett lives in Norfolk and works as a freelance translator of Scandinavian literature. He has translated, or co-translated, Norwegian novels by Lars Saabye Christensen, Roy Jacobson, Ingvar Ambjørnsen, Kjell Ola Dahl, Gunnar Staalesen, Pernille Rygg and Jo Nesbo.