I'm the writer of three books of fiction: the short story collections Hele verden skal elske oss (The Whole World Will Love Us, 2023) and Voksenting (Grown-Up Things, 2010), and the novel NY BY (New City, 2013). I have had residencies at The MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, USA, Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Gotland, Sweden, and Kunstnarhuset Messen in Ålvik, Norway, and since 2014, I have been a member of The Norwegian Authors’ Union.
       I am an experienced journalist and editor, with 20 years of work experience from e.g. the The Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, the Norwegian National Theatre and the Norwegian daily newspaper Dagbladet. I live in Oslo.

CONTACT
E: borjamaria@gmail.com
T: +47 920 52259

THE WHOLE WORLD WILL LOVE US (Hele verden skal elske oss, 2023, see Cappelen Agency for translation rights).

How can someone so easily believe in love and the future, when for others it’s so difficult? In The Whole World Will Love Us Maria Børja writes powerfully about relationships of power between humans and a globe in crisis. With her seven short stories the book is a follow-up to Grown Up Things (2010), which was amongst other things labelled an ‘erotic smash debut’.

Sunniva moves in with the energetic, sourdough bread-baking Henning. He wants children, she imagines a future where the ground beneath her daughter’s feet is burning, and the water is so warm it has no cooling effect.

A PR employee engages in a relationship with an almost twenty-years-younger civil worker. She skips work to go on a trip with him and discovers he’s preparing for a life in the woods, off-grid.

While the others are sleeping, a student works as a sleep warden for strangers. She must sit with them until they fall asleep, but not get close to them.

The Whole World Will Love is about relations between humans and desires, about a belief in the future which clashes with a gloomy world view, about what it means to be on the outside or have the upper hand.

New York, fall 2008. Lisa Kolberg comes to the city to study. She moves into a vegan collective where sushi is forbidden, but where it is perfectly acceptable to fire up a joint.
     Two years later, Lisa is living in Hell’s Kitchen with Fred from the wealthy Castelucci family. She dines at Manhattan’s finest restaurants and wears high heels to work at the Norwegian General Consulate. But the summer heat has reached record levels, her visa is about to expire, and every night she is woken by something itching. Small bloodthirsty creatures have invaded her apartment, her bed and her life. 
    NEW CITY is a novel about ambition and vanity, about the ability to survive and primal urges. How much is one willing to pay for an extraordinary and wonderful life?

"Børja takes the pulse of New York, making the reader feel she’s on Manhattan herself. This is entertaining reading.” KK: Book of the Week

"Maria Børja paints a rich portrait of the city and its inhabitants, with all its hypocrisy, hierarchy – and charm ... At its best New City exposes human beings and the games they play on each other.” Universitas

"New City shows that New York is more fun in Converse than Manolo Blahniks." Dagbladet

“Whether you left home this fall, have good memories from a trip to or only dream about New York, Maria Børja’s novel New City could be a happy date.” Drammens Tidende

"Maria Børja portrays the New York’s squares, famous streets, restaurants, bars and people so well that I feel I’m there – even if I’ve never visited … in a flowing, solid and vivid voice …” Vårt Land

"There is little doubt Børja really loves New York. For one who shares the love it is a true pleasure reading about Lisa’s nightly wanderings and bar crawls on the Lower East Side." Moss Avis

"Did Lisa make the right choice … and is it worth it for the reader? The answer is yes. Børja would never let her reader down on the last page.” Nordis Tennes, Bokmerker.org

– And then he tied my hands together, Kathrine said. She was talking about a friend we had known for several years. 
– Above my head. But he left my feet free. 
Someone took a deep breath. 
– And then he said he would fuck me and told me to scream when I came. As if I could come. 
Gina cleared her throat. 
– Later, he called it sex, but it wasn’t, of course. 
We hadn’t talked like this before, not all of us together. Not since we were about fifteen and one of us, Marianne perhaps, had hit a grown up man in the face. He had put his hand up under her skirt. At least that was what she said, but the story had been the object of a certain amount of doubt; she never wanted to say who it was. 
– Did you tell him? Sophie asked. 
– Tell him what? 
She looked dumbstruck . Then she continued meekly: 
– That it wasn’t exactly sex. 
– No, Kathrine said, forward as usual. – I had been weak enough to kiss him.

These thirteen short stories are about sexually charged young women who with body and action touch, and are touched by, others. Maria Børja's debut explores the possibility of finding someone, getting someone, having someone. Jumping into situations without considering the consequences. Discovering oneself through others. It is a book that ponders the reasons to stay, and the reasons to go.
    Getting involved with someone can be exulting and ecstatic, mundane and lonely, absolutely fantastic and completely impossible. GROWN-UP THINGS is a sassy, revealing and courageous book about all those things grown-ups can do to, and with, each other.

“To point out authors that the author shares commonalities with can often be more obscuring than informing. Yet I would like to mention Hamsun. Both because of the sensual, confident language, and the surprising literary devices. A very promising debut – I look forward to more books by Maria Børja.” Fædrelandsvennen

“… she has the ability to discover a sort of nakedness in the depiction of relations, that can’t help but leave an impression. (…) The strength of the stories is in the establishment of situations. … At the end of the year, I feel certain that she will stand out as one of this year's finest new writers.” Hamar Arbeiderblad

“Sensual, close and moving about women, about women and men, about sex, about relationships, and about loneliness. Børja depicts social settings and experiences efficiently and precisely. (…) [She] touches on many literary genres in this collection, but has already established her own style and tone that bind the stories together.” Adresseavisen

“Penetrating prose. Børja goes in close, finds the point where social dancing becomes off-balance, pokes at it. She does this in crafty and interesting ways, with dark humor. (…) Grown-up Things has that something that leaves you pondering, a little surprised and fascinated at the same time.” Klassekampen

“Erotic super-debut from Børja.” Moss Avis

“Maria Børja’s debut is a powerful short story collection about one-night stands and other grown-up things… Børja writes unabashedly and direct from the first sentence…What elevates this debut is the mixture of the politically and esthetically conscious. When I think the text goes in one direction, it twists, makes a stop, and changes direction. It touches me.” Bergens Tidende

“It is really really distasteful. And therefore great.” Dag og Tid

“Børja uses a language that hits you in the gut and walks the fine line between what is personal, and what is just vulgar and disgusting, but also between what is sad, and what is comical – or rather tragicomic… This read is intense and unusual, wrapped in a quick and concise language. Knowing that this sounds like a cliché: this must be one of the year’s best debuts.” Universitas

“…here are no speculative or lewd depictions. (…) For me, it is exactly the tension between focus on the body, and the lack of warmth and security, that the women in Maria Børja’s text are marked by, powerfully and thoughtfully described.” Tønsberg Blad