The decade of the 1980s was in many ways a response to the social realism in 1970s literature. In 1983, Kaj Skagen published a polemical-philosophical treatise titled "Bazarovs barn" ("Bazarov's Children", alluding to the Russian fictional nihilist Eugene Bazarov), which reconciled the role of authors who had been on the periphery in the 1970s. Skagen advocated for a more individual-oriented and idealistic literature. Although it is uncertain whether this book created or simplify reflected the transition, many of the 1970s authors shifted in new directions during the 1980s. Dag Solstad published two novels which were retrospectives on the Workers' Communist Party. Espen Haavardsholm wrote a novel titled "Drift" and Edvard Hoem authored "Prøvetid". All these works focused on middle-aged men who live through the crises of life, while struggling to find new footing. Similarly Knut Faldbakken's novels about the change of men's roles during the women's revolution in the 1970s reflected the new direction.