Gaute Heivoll

Gaute Heivoll is a native of a rural community in southern Norway. He was just a few weeks old when there were a series of ten fires in one month – May 1978 – that terrorized the conservative community where nothing much ever happened. Gaute was a quiet, shy young boy who was a people pleaser and never wanted to stand out among his peers. But after telling a fascinating story that captured the full attention of his first-grade class, his teacher pulled him aside and told him that he was a potential “writer”. Horrors! Gaute thought that sounded like something that would make him different – and not in a good way – in fact, to him there was no way to be different that was good. He wanted to stay on the sunny side of life and make no waves. Being this scary thing called a “writer” sounded like a...