Asle Toje (b. 1974) is the Deputy Leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee which is responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a scholar and an author who has lived and worked in Germany, France, Belgium, England, and the United States. He was educated at the Universities of Oslo and Tromsø and received his PhD from Cambridge University. He speaks English and Norwegian and dabbles in German and Spanish.
In 1994, I hitchhiked to Ukraine. A long-haired high school student, I was eager to explore what my whole life had lain beyond the family’s holiday plans. For us, children of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was something colourless, menac...