Ask Penguin20 Nov 2025

What is the best translated fiction to read? With Karl Ove Knausgaard

What are the best new books in Korean fiction? What is the process of translating a book into English? And how do you evoke a sense of place you haven't visited?

This week we sat down with award-winning and internationally best-selling author, Karl Ove Knausgaard to discuss his latest novel, The School of Night.

The School of Night is a Faustian-inspired meditation on art and creativity, the 4th novel in The Morning Star series, and the first in the sequence that can be read as a standalone novel.

Discover all the books mentioned on this episode: Click here

Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle cycle has been heralded as a masterpiece all over the world. From A Death in the Family to The End, the novels move through childhood into adulthood and, together, form an enthralling portrait of human life. Knausgaard has been awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, the Brage Prize and the Jerusalem Prize. His work, which also includes the Seasons Quartet and the Morning Star sequence (The Morning Star, The Wolves of Eternity, The Third Realm and The School of Night) is published in thirty-six languages.

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