Tor Torkildsen (3 June 1932,

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

– 8 July 2006) was a Norwegian

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and ship-owner who changed career to novelist in his 60s. The family shipping company ''Torkildsen'' went bankrupt in 1977, and he took up writing while residing in Scotland, later returning to Trondheim. In the 1980s he was a

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for Stentofon, but the company went under and Torkildsen turned to writing full-time. Writing about life at sea was something he found natural, but he had to do research on certain land locations such as

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at Trondheim Public Library. After writing several scripts in English, he was rejected by several British publishing houses. Translating one script to Norwegian, he was picked as a writer up by

Aschehoug H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard), commonly known as Aschehoug,() is one of the largest independent publishing companies in Norway, founded in 1872. Headquartered in Oslo, the publishing house has 480 employees. The Aschehoug group also comprises ot ...

after taking part in one of their thriller literature contests, despite not winning the contest. His debut thriller novel, ''Stella Baltica'', was published in 1994, followed by ''Dødt skip'' in 1995 and ''På død manns kiste'' in 1996. In 1995 he also debuted as a young adult fiction writer in the adventure genre, releasing ''Piratene på Bali'' followed by ''Gullskatten på revet'' (1996). Torkildsen's thrillers were issued by

and the young adult fiction books by

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. Torkildsen was then contracted to to write the pocket book series ''Brenning''. The first 18 ''Brenning'' books were printed in a circulation of 200,000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Torkildsen, Tor 1932 births 2006 deaths Writers from Trondheim Norwegian businesspeople in shipping 20th-century Norwegian novelists 21st-century Norwegian novelists Norwegian thriller writers