5 Questions with Lars Mytting

1. What are you most looking forward to at Wigtown this year?

Will be fun to see if there are any firewood or axe enthusiasts interested in my book Norwegian Wood – I believe so. But I am also very interested in the specialized part of the programme, like Richard Brown talking about the ties between the novel and the television drama, which surely is in a golden era now. I also enjoy Scotland a great deal. Have visited Inner and Outer Hebrides, as well as the Highlands several times by motorbike, and my latest novel takes place in Shetland.

2. Who would be your dream author to appear at the festival?

Cormac McCarthy, without doubt. But he travels less than a mountain, it seems. I would like to hear him talk about writing style and also how he worked with his last novels, as well as Blood Meridian and his Border Trilogy - all milestone works of the American past.

3. Your book helped inspire a TV programme in Norway about cutting, stacking and burning firewood. Can you think of another book that you would love to see made into a TV programme and can you explain why that is?

Among non-fiction, I really would enjoy seeing one of John Seymour’s self-sufficiency books being brought to television. Very useful knowledge, plus it builds a dream in the reader/viewer.  

4. If you could choose to be any literary character, who would it be and why?

Cyrus Smith in Jules Verne’s L'Île mystérieuse always appealed to me. Clever and energetic, plus he is surrounded by good friends and endures hardship when involved in great mysteries on a desolate island. In a bigger perspective I find this a important literary question actually, I believe a strong ambience in a novel – producing a urge in the reader to really be there – is very important.

5. Aside from the books, what do you think makes book festivals different to other festivals? What makes them unique?

My experience is that people at book festivals stay joyfully awake all night neglecting in a happy way how the standard of the discussions fade.

Tickets are still available to Lars Mytting's 'Norwegian Wood' at 3pm on Saturday 26th September. To book, please call the box office on 01988 403222. Tickets £8.