Cheltenham-Literature Festival.

 Cheltenham-Literature Festival.

Last weekend, October 8th, we discovered a new town: We ate Sri Lankan food for the first time and had posh English tea. But the reason we came was because of the literature festival that was held annually. 

At Cheltenham Festival, we met a man called Karl Ove Knausgård, a famous author from Norway - the place I had lived in for several years. 

He read out a " self-rejected”  segment of his book -‘Morning Star’- which was about a nineteen year old boy with a dead father, ill mother and a younger brother. He read a scene of a nineteen year old at a night. Apparently, this was the piece which stopped him from publishing his novel.

Eight or even ten years later, he read it over again and realised this was a great piece of work. He decided to work on it more and finally published it as his first major novel after his book series of four.

Speaking about his autobiographies, all four books in the series are called “My struggles” parts one to four.

After completing these series of books, he was forced to move to London As his fathers side of the family wouldn’t talk to him and his second wife had a nervous breakdown. Since these books were about his personal life, his family was featured in them and so some people were offended.

Although me and my twin weren't as riveted about the second half of his speech, I had learnt a lot from this author: He inspired me not to just give up on my pieces of writing, and perhaps not to include extremely personal details in books which the public will see and Finally,  he taught me to hold on to my work as I might use it in the future when I’ve read it again. Today I will be going to meet some famous children authors.

L