Det Norsk Samlaget, 1996. Cover and design: Marius Renberg. Calligraphy pages 40, 41 and 52: Judith Hauge Nærland.

In autumn 1995 I attended a seminar with the experienced and brilliant writer Erna Osland. She wanted us to create a comic biography together. Before she revealed the subject, she described a young man intensely focused at his desk. A woman, who believed she was his sweetheart, came asking for him. The moment he saw her from the window, he slipped out and fled into the forest.

I recognized that scene immediately. As a schoolboy in Midtun, I spent endless hours drawing in my room at Høgaste. When girls from my class once climbed all the way up to ask for me, I dropped my pencil, jumped out of the window and disappeared into the woods.

So I said yes to Erna before even knowing the subject. It turned out to be the linguist Ivar Aasen, and the book had to be finished for the centenary of his death on 23 September 1996.

There was little time, so we followed in Aasen's footsteps, travelling where he had gathered dialect material for Ordbog over det norske Folkesprog (1850) and Prøver af Landsmaalet i Norge (1853), foundations for what became Nynorsk.

I remain deeply grateful to Erna for that unique collaboration and for inviting me into a completely new visual and narrative landscape.

Arild MidthunSon, September 2024