Biography

Jan-Erik Fjell (born October 20^th 1982) grew up in Gressvik outside of Fredrikstad. He has an education in IT, Office and Administration, but works full-time as a writer.

After finishing hish school, which included several sabbaticals, he began his studies at Næringsakademiet (the Business Academy) and Folkeuniversitet (the People’s College). For Jan-Erik, this was an easy solution which would grant him work as soon as he was out of school. He has explained he always preferred the simple solutions. The solutions which didn’t require much, so that he could spend more time with his friends and goof around. For he never cared much for school, and the grades reflected that fact.

At the age of 23, Jan-Erik began studying Preliminary English at Halden College, with a goal of eventually becoming a teacher. After six months, he quit. 

Then he wanted to try writing. Four and a half weeks later, the project was done, and it was called «Pus». The history is a tragicomedic tale about a young man with two interests: Women and himself. For a long time, Jan-Erik tried getting it published with several publishers, but they all said the same: «We are sorry, but this does not fit into our release plan.» Eventually, a small publisher liked what they read and wanted to publish the script as a book. «Pus» was released spring of 2009, and went by completely unnoticed. 

The summer of 2009, he began writing «The Snitch». He was not happy with the efforts of his old publisher, and chose to let Juritzen Publishing evaluate the script instead. They liked it so much that Arve Juritzen said he thought someone had sendt the publishers a previously released script to see how easy it would be to trick a newly established publishing company. Arve Juritzen didn’t bite, and put his best people out to discover the truth. Now we all know it. 

«The Snitch» was published during the autumn of 2010 with standing ovation from the critics. Later that same year, Jan-Erik was awarded «Bokhandlerprisen» – «The Bookstore Price» – for his thriller debut. It was on the Best Seller-list for almost a year, and has now been printed in more than 120.000 copies.

Jan-Erik with the Secretary of Culture, Anniken Huitfeldt. Photo: Geir Carlsson