Jostein Gaarder, (born Aug. 8, 1952, Oslo, Nor.), Norwegian school teacher and author of books that examined the history of philosophy and religion for an audience of young readers. His novel Sofies verden (1991; Sophie’s World) was an international best seller.
Gaarder studied the history of ideas, religion, and Nordic literature at the University of Oslo. After graduating in 1976, he worked as a secondary-school teacher of philosophy, religion, and literature in Oslo and Bergen. He began his literary career gradually, lecturing occasionally, submitting articles and poems to newspapers, and coauthoring textbooks. Gaarder debuted as an author of fiction with two short stories published in 1982 and 1986, and he followed those with two children’s books: Barna fra Sukhavati (“The Children from Sukhavati”) in 1987 and Froskeslottet (The Frog Castle) in 1988. In both books Gaarder set a fantasy world against the real world, giving the central characters the opportunity to explore and question ideas and values. In 1990 came Kabalmysteriet (The Solitaire Mystery), featuring a boy, Hans Thomas, and his father on a journey in search of the boy’s mother, who had been lost eight years earlier. Gaarder felt that young Hans Thomas needed a greater understanding of philosophy, and this was how he came to write his history of philosophy in Sophie’s World.
Scoffed at by many critics—The Times of London called it “a potted philosophy primer masquerading as a novel of ideas”—Gaarder’s best-seller undoubtedly owed its popularity to its cross-genre and cross-generational appeal. The central character is Sophie, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, who one day receives an unsigned note containing two questions: “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?” This leads her—and the reader—into an examination of the history of Western philosophy, from the pre-Socratics to G.W.F. Hegel, Søren Kierkegaard, and Jean-Paul Sartre. As was his style in other books, Gaarder spiced the plot of Sophie’s World with elements of mystery and doled out the philosophy in a gentle and accessible way. Published in Germany in 1993, the book climbed to the top of Der Spiegel magazine’s best-seller list and stayed there for most of the year. It was subsequently published throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
Gaarder’s next novel, Julemysteriet (1992; The Christmas Mystery), was a journey through the history of Christianity, while I et speil, I en gate (1993; Through a Glass, Darkly), which took its title from a line in the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, was written as a dialogue between an angel and a girl dying of cancer. Gaarder’s later novels included Vita Brevis (1996; published in English as Vita Brevis and That Same Flower), Sirkusdirektørens datter (2001; The Ringmaster’s Daughter), and Slottet i Pyreneene (2008; “The Castle in the Pyrenees”).