Ullmann is the daughter of actress, author and director Liv Ullmann and director and screenwriter Ingmar Bergman.

Linn Ullmann (born 1966) is a graduate of New York University, where she studied English literature and began work on her Ph.D. When her first and critically acclaimed novel Before You Sleep was published in 1998, she was already known as an influential literary critic. Her second novel, Stella Descending was published in 2001 and her third novel Grace was published in 2002. For Grace Linn Ullmann received the literary award The Reader’s Prize in Norway and Grace was named one of the top ten novels that year by the prestigious newspaper Weekendavisen in Denmark. In 2007, Grace was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the United Kingdom, and in March the same year, the Norwegian theater Riksteatret played a successful run of the theatrical play Grace, based on the novel.

Ullmann’s fourth novel A Blessed Child was published in Norway the fall of 2005, and it was shortlisted for the prestigious Norwegian literature prize — the Brage Prize. In 2007, she was awarded the Amalie Skram Award for her literary work, and she received Gullpennen (the Golden Pen) for her journalism in Norway’s leading morning newspaper Aftenposten. In 2008, A Blessed Child was named Best Translated novel in the British newspaper The Independent, and in 2009 the novel was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in the UK. Linn Ullmann’s novels are published throughout Europe and the United States and are translated into 30 languages.

Linn Ullmann is co-founder (2009) and former Artistic Director of the international artist residency foundation The Bergman Estate on Fårö.

Linn Ullmann is married to Niels Fredrik Dahl, a novelist, playwright and poet. She lives in Oslo.