Roy Jacobsen

Norwegian novelist and short-story writer whose début in 1982, the short-story collection Fangeliv (Prison Life), won the Tarjei Vesaas' debutantpris. He has won The Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and two of his novels have been nominated for The Nordic Council's Literature Prize: Seierherrene (The Conquerors) in 1991 and Frost in 2004. The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles was published in Britain in 2008.

In his teens, Jacobsen was a member of the criminal "Årvoll gang". At age 16 he was arrested by the police and kept in solitary confinement for 35 days. He was subsequently convicted of among other things weapons offences and theft, and given a six-month suspended sentence.

Jacobsen wrote the screenplay for the 2008 Danish film "Valhalla Rising" with Nicolas Winding Refn, who also directed the film. In 2023, he was appointed a Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav "for his outstanding writing."

Jacobsen died from lung failure on 18 October 2025 in Oslo aged 70.