Lars Saabye Christensen is a gifted storyteller, a narrator who is imaginative, but equally down to earth. His realism alternates between poetic image and ingenious incident, conveyed in supple metropolitan language and slang that never smacks of the artificial or forced. His heroes possess a good deal of self-irony. Indeed, critics have drawn parallels with the black humour of Woody Allen. But beneath the liveliness of his portrayal melancholy always lurks in the books.
Since his début in 1976 Saabye Christensen has written ten collections of poetry, five collections of short stories and twelve novels. His great break through came with the novel Beatles in 1984. The book store sale of over 200,000 copies of the Norwegian edition has made this one of the greatest commercial successes in Norway, and it was voted the best novel of the last 25 years by Dagbladet's readers in 2006.
In the same year, His Majesty King Lars appointed Lars Saabye Christensen as Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav for his distinguished contributions to Norwegian literature.
In 2018, he received Oslo’s highest honor, the St. Hallvard Medal, for his prolific writing career spanning over 40 years, with many of his books set in Oslo, the author’s own city.
His books have been translated into 36 languages.