Per Petterson (b. 1952) worked for several years as an unskilled laborer, bookseller, writer, and translator until he made his literary debut in 1987 with the short story collection Aske i munnen, sand i skoa. He made his literary breakthrough in 2003 with the prize-winning novel Ut og stjæle hester. The novel received the Norwegian Booksellers' Prize and The Critics Prize the same year. Petterson shared the 2006 Independent of London Foreign Fiction Prize with his translator, Anne Born, for Out Stealing Horses.