How do you write the truth about someone?

Norwegian Ivo de Figueiredo and South African Jonny Steinberg are non-fiction writers who challenge the genre of biography by using literary devices not usually found in the toolbox of a classical biographer. In the book Nelson and Winnie: Portrait of a Marriage Steinberg has delved depp into the lives of the best-known husband-and-wife couple in his country. Ivo de Figueiredo has in the book The Storm. A Biography of Edvard Munch tackled a two-volume work about the best-known artist in Norway.

How do they work to dig out the truth about a well-known person, not least when plenty has been written about them before? To what extent do the authors experience getting to know the people they are writing about? And how far are they willing to go – will they for instance ever speculate? The two acclaimed non-fiction writers meet author and journalist Katrine Sele in a conversation about truth, lies and new discoveries in biography.