Ola Bauer - Literary Career

Literary Career

Bauer had grown up with the notion that his father was a war hero, having died as a prisoner of war. As an adult, he learned that his father had in fact died of methanol poisoning, having gotten hold of what he thought was alcohol. In his autobiographical debut novel, Graffiti (1976), Bauer confronted his mother with the fact that she had kept this secret from him. "I grew up in a lie about a man I have never known", he commented. Because of the novel's contents, one of his relatives insisted that he publish it under a pseudonym, to protect his mother. Despite "having nothing to hide self", he therefore released the novel under the pen name Jo Vendt. Graffiti was very well received by critics. Roar Petersen of Verdens Gang noted the poetic quality of many of the passages in the novel. Johan Borgen described the debut as "measuring 7.3 on the Richter earthquake scale".

Bauer published the freestanding sequel to Graffiti, Bulk (1978), under his own name. The novel depicts a young man returning to Oslo after spending some time at sea. Alcoholism is a central theme, both the protagonist and his mother are portrayed as heavy drinkers. His next novel, Humlehjertene (1980), depicts the protagonist's stay in Paris from 1967 to 1969, where he becomes involved in the May 1968 student riots. The novel was heavily based on Bauer's own experiences from Paris during the same period. "I suppose every writer actually writes about themselves", he told Verdens Gang. The Troubles in Northern Ireland would become the topic of Rosapenna (1983), named after a street in Belfast. Bauer felt that the Norwegian press was giving a one-sided picture of The Troubles, something he wanted to correct. To get the necessary distance to the source material, he decided to let the novel take place in 1973. Bauer himself arrived in Belfast in 1972, shortly after the Bloody Sunday, as a journalist for Vi Menn. He became an eyewitness to the bombing of the Abercorn restaurant in Castle Lane. Bauer could not believe the IRA was responsible for the bombing, and defended them in Vi Menn. He eventually became closely involved with the IRA. "England is to blame for the conflict in Northern Ireland. The antagonism is based on economic differences ... this is not a religious war", Bauer said in an interview shortly after the release of Rosapenna. Bauer's 1985 novel Metoden introduced the protagonist Bo Brandt, the son of a wealthy, alcoholized, ship-owner. The novel serves both as a crime thriller and a psychological study.

Bauer's last novels would revolve around Tom, who starts out as a ten-year-old in Hestehodetåken (1992), and returns as a teenager in Svartefot (1995), and a twenty-year-old in Magenta (1997). Bauer referred to the books as "a reluctant trilogy". In the fourth novel in the series, Forløperen (1999), Tom returns to Norway after spending forty years traveling abroad. The book was finished while Bauer was terminally ill, and released posthumously.

Aside from his novels, Bauer was also a playwright. Two of his plays, Vesper (1987) and Brendan (1993), depict the conflict in Northern Ireland.