Winner of the Norwegian Brage Prize 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Critics' Prize for Literature 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Reine Ord Prize at Lofoten International Literature Festival 2016
A salty story of friendship, adventure, and the explosive life that teems beneath the ocean, for fans of Bill Bryson and such classics as The Snow Leopard.
In the great depths surrounding the Lofoten islands in Norway lives the infamous Greenland shark. At 26 feet in length and weighing more than a ton, it is truly a beast to behold. But the shark is not just known for its size alone: Its meat contains a toxin that, when consumed, has been known to make people drunk and hallucinatory. Shark Drunk is the true story of two friends, the author and the eccentric artist Hugo Aasjord, as they embark on a wild pursuit of the famed creature - from a tiny rubber boat. Together the two men tackle existential questions, survive the world's most powerful maelstrom, and, yes, get drunk as they attempt to understand the ocean from every possible angle, drawing on poetry, science, history, ecology, mythology, and their own sometimes intoxicated observations.