My Struggle, Book One
2009
Autofiction
The first volume of Karl Ove Knausgård's six-part autobiographical novel, published in Norwegian as *Min Kamp* in 2009. Book One alternates between Knausgård's adolescence in 1980s Norway — a New Year's Eve hunt for alcohol, a teenage band, the texture of shame — and his adult return to his grandmother's house to clean up after his alcoholic father's death. Written at breakneck pace with little editorial polish, it pioneered the contemporary autofiction wave and provoked lawsuits from family members whose real names and lives appear in its pages.