Jostein Gaarder was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1952. His father was a headmaster and his mother a teacher and author of children's books. He studied Scandinavian languages and theology at the University of Oslo and started writing early on, contributing to various philosophy and theology textbooks. He got married in 1974 and moved to Bergen, where he taught philosophy in high school. He published his first fiction book in 1986 and this was followed by a number of children's books. "Sophie's World", his biggest success to date, was published in 1991. It was translated in over 40 languages and became the best-selling fiction book in the world in 1995.