Per Petterson worked as a laborer, bookseller, writer, and translator until he made his literary debut in 1987 with the short story collection Aske i munnen, sand i skoa.
In 2003, his novel Ut og stjæle hester received the Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize and The Critics Prize the same year.
Petterson shared the 2006 Independent of London Foreign Fiction Prize with his translator, Anne Born, for Out Stealing Horses. His most recent novel in English, In the Wake, was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.