Jan Olav Gatland (born 14 March 1949) is a Norwegian librarian and biographer.
[3] Throughout the 1980s, Gatland explored homosexuality in literature, among others in order to "find my roots".
The work resulted in a book of collected poetry, Frå mann til mann – dikt om menns kjærleik til menn (1986), and the book Mellom linjene - homofile tema i norsk litteratur (1990) where he analyzed both overt and covert gay themes in Norwegian literature.
The book chronicled 14 same-sex, allegedly non-sexual friendships, mostly within the literary or artistic sphere.
He also wrote a textbook in theatre theory, Teaterteori, issued in 1998 by Pax.