Janet Garton is Emeritus Professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, where she taught Scandinavian Literature and Languages from 1969 to 2008. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, whilst also taking courses at the Universities of Oslo and Copenhagen. She was made an MBE in 1995, was awarded Fritt Ords honnørpris in 2007 and became Ridder av Den kongelige norske fortjenesteorden in 2009.
Her books include Jens Bjørneboe: Prophet without Honor (1985), Norwegian Women’s Writing 1850-1990 (1993) and a biography of Amalie Skram: Amalie. Et forfatterliv (2011). She has edited five volumes of Amalie Skram’s correspondence, and written various articles about her. She has also been active as a translator, most recently of Kirsten Thorup (The God of Chance, 2013), Johan Borgen (Little Lord, 2016), Erik Fosnes Hansen (Lobster Life, 2019) and Jan Kjærstad (Berge, 2019). In 2019-20 she is resident in Copenhagen as a guest researcher at the Society for Danish Language and Literature.
From 1990 to 2008 she was the editor of Scandinavica, the international journal of Scandinavian Studies, and in 1986, together with James McFarlane, she set up the publishing house Norvik Press, of which she is still a director. She has been a member of IASS since 1970, was Secretary General from 1980-98 and President 1998-2000.