Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder is a Norwegian novelist who studied theology and Scandinavian languages in Oslo and then taught at a secondary school in Bergen. His novel Sophie's World (1991) follows a fourteen-year-old girl who receives mysterious letters that lead her through the history of Western philosophy, from the Presocratics to Sartre, while she slowly discovers the strange nature of her own world. Translated into some sixty languages, it became one of the best-known introductions to philosophy. Many of his other books also use stories within stories to raise questions about existence and wonder.

Key ideas

• Philosophy begins in wonder, which children have and adults often lose.
• A good philosopher is like a child who has not yet grown used to the world.
• Knowing the history of ideas helps us understand who we are and where we come from.
• Fiction can raise questions about reality itself, as characters discover that they may be part of someone else's story.

Major works

• Sophie's World (1991)
• The Solitaire Mystery (1990)
• The Christmas Mystery (1992)
• Through a Glass, Darkly (1993)
• The Ringmaster's Daughter (2001)

In the Book corner

• Sophie’s World 1991 · Beginner
  A novel built around a history of Western philosophy. Sophie Amundsen, a fourteen-year-old Norwegian girl, finds two notes in her letterbox asking…

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