Bernstein Award Finalist Series: Åsne Seierstad

In celebration of the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, The New York Public Library invites finalist Åsne Seierstad for a conversation with Jessica Strand.  Åsne Seierstad is nominated for her book One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway.

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb outside the Norwegian prime minister’s office in central Oslo, killing eight people. He then moved to a youth camp on the wooded island of Utøya, where he killed 69 more, most of them teenage members of the country’s governing Labour Party. Åsne Seierstad’s One of Us examines violent extremism and how a society copes with homegrown evil in this definitive story of the terrible day and its reverberations, still felt today. 

Åsne Seierstad is an award-winning Norwegian journalist and writer known for her work as a war correspondent. She is the author of The Bookseller of Kabul, A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal, and The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War. She lives in Oslo.

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Since 1988, the Bernstein Award, which includes a $15,000 cash prize, has been given to journalists whose books have brought clarity and public attention to important issues, events, or policies. Previous winners of the award include Dan Fagin, Katherine Boo, Ellen E. Schultz, Shane Harris, David Finkel and Jane Mayer.  Anand Giridharadas won last year for his acclaimed book, The True American; Murder and Mercy in Texas. 

The Bernstein Award was established through a gift from Joseph Frank Bernstein, in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein (now Helen Bernstein Fealy).  The family has also endowed the position of Helen Bernstein Librarian for Periodicals and Journals, who curates The New York Public Library’s internationally-renowned Periodicals collection - one of the largest collections of past and present newspapers, magazines, and more in the world. The position is currently held by librarian Karen Gisonny.

More information about the Bernstein Awards and programs here!

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