Books
High Up (2020)
A Journey in the Himalayas
Travelogue
The Himalayas streches through five very different countries. Countless languages and vastly different cultures are found in the secluded mountain valleys. In the Himalayas modernity and tradition collide while the great powers fight for influence.
We have read about mountain climbers on their way up Mount Everest and travelers on spiritual search in Buddhist monasteries. But how much do we know about the people living in the Himalayas? Fatland lets us meet them up close while taking us on a dizzying journey in the heights, through incredible landscapes and dramatic, unknown world history - all the way to the geopolitical conflicts of the present
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Shortlisted for the Norwegian Booksellers' Award
Shortlisted for the Brage Prize
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The Border (2017)
A Journey Around Russia
through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan,
Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia,
Estonia, Finland and Norway as well as the Northeast Passage
Travelogue
Erika Fatland travels along the seemingly endless Russian border – from North Korea in the Far East through Russia’s bordering states in Asia and the Caucasus, crossing the Caspian Ocean and the Black Sea along the way.
The Border is a book about Russia and Russian history without its author ever entering Russia itself; a book about being the neighbour of that mighty, expanding empire throughout history. It is a chronicle of the colourful, exciting, tragic and often unbelievable histories of these bordering nations, their cultures, their people, their landscapes.
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«Erika Fatland deserves both applause and thanks for this impressive mix of history, reportage and travel memoir.»
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Michael Dirda, Washington Post
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Winner of the Norwegian Book Blogger Award 2017
Premio Terzani finalist, 2020
Shortlisted for The Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year, 2020
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Sovietistan (2014)
A journey through Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan
Travelogue
Erika Fatland takes the reader on a journey that is unknown to even the most seasoned globetrotter. The five former Soviet Republics’ Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all became independent when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. How have these countries developed since then?
In the Kyrgyzstani villages Erika Fatland meets victims of the widely known tradition of bride snatching; she visits the huge and desolate Polygon in Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union tested explosions of nuclear bombs; she meets Chinese shrimp gatherers on the banks of the dried out Aral Sea and she witnesses the fall of a dictator. She travels incognito through Turkmenistan, a country that is closed to journalists. She meets exhausted human rights activists in Kazakhstan, survivors from the massacre in Osh in 2010, German Menonites that found paradise on the Kyrgyzstani plains 200 years ago. During her travels, she observes how ancient customs clash with gas production and she witnesses the underlying conflicts between ethnic Russians and the majority in a country that is slowly building its future in Nationalist colours.
In these countries, that used to be the furthest border of the Soviet Union, life follows another pace of time. Amidst the treasures of Samarkand and the bleakness of Soviet architecture, Erika Fatland moves with her openness towards the people and the landscapes around her. A rare and unforgettable travelogue.
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Winner of The Norwegian Booksellers' prize for
non-fiction 2014
Shortlisted for The Stanford Dolman/Lonely Planet Debut Writer of the Year 2018
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