Karl Ove Knausgaard: 'I would have cut off my arm if it ended up in a novel'

The Norwegian literary phenomenon tells Guardian Live event how and why he has put the most intimate details of his life into his autobiographical novels

Towards the end of A Man in Love, the second of six volumes in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s autobiographical My Struggle series, the author returns to his native Norway to deliver two talks. Drinking coffee at a kiosk in Kjevik airport, he runs through his cues, reassuring himself: “It’ll be fine … It didn’t matter too much that these were old ideas and I no longer believed in them. The important thing was that I said something.”

This notion might also be applied to Knausgaard’s autobiographical novels, which, like real life, can be inconsistent and contradictory. His thoughts on art, philosophy, marriage and raising children are can be fallible and often change, but the fact that he has written them down, unrestrained and without moderation, is what counts. In this vein, Knausgaard has produced something colossal, prioritising “presence” and personal truth over all else.

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