Paal-Helge Haugen was born in 1945 in the Valley of Setesdal in Southern Norway; he now lives in Nodeland, near the south coast. Since 1967 he has published sixteen volumes of poetry, including two volumes of selected poems and one of collected poems. His poetry has earned him five of the most prestigious awards in Norway—the Brage Prize, the Gyldendal Prize, the Nynorsk Literature Prize, the Norwegian Critics’ Prize, and the Aschehoug Prize—as well as the Dobloug Prize, awarded by the Swedish Academy. His work has been translated into some twenty languages. Stone Fences, translated by William Mishler and Roger Greenwald, and Wintering with the Light, translated by Greenwald, are Haugen’s two books in English; entire books or volumes of selected poems have also appeared in Swedish, Danish, German, Icelandic, French, and Czech. Haugen has published four volumes of translations into Norwegian, several children’s books, and an award-winning novel, Anne, which has been translated into several languages. He has also worked with visual artists on various projects and has collaborated with composers by writing six opera libretti.