As a child his grandmother, Esther Elisabeth Ludvigsen, taught him the piano, he took violin lessons, and picked up the guitar at the age of 13.

At the same time his interest in music shifted towards the growing indie-scene of the eighties, with artists such as The Smiths, Imperiet (later Thåström), The Cure, deLillos, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Depeche Mode, R.E.M., Japan, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

The poem dealt with his father's drinking habit, and Renberg has said that he considers that day the beginning of his writing career.

In the following months he developed a habit of writing poems, and it is also in this crucial period of his life that Renberg reads the one novel that he has repeated over and over again to be life-changing and a turning point: Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

After reading the Russian classic, fourteen-year-old Tore Renberg wrote in his diary: "I am going to be a writer," and in the years to come he sat down every day after school to write song lyrics, poems and short stories.

At Kongsgård Renberg met several radical and free-thinking characters who had a great impact on him, amongst them the (in)famous Norwegian Communist Aslak Sira Myhre.

The book has sold 150 000 copies, it is translated into 7 languages and made into a film (The Man Who Loved Yngve, director: Stian Kritiansen).

[1] In 2011 came the book At Party With Literature, a collection of essays and lectures where Renberg explores the joys of being a reader, introducing some of his finest reading experiences: Honoré de Balzac, Selma Lagerlöf and Halldór Laxness.

Autumn 2013 saw a significant turn in Renberg's career as a writer: the epic neo-noir See You Tomorrow, applauded by critics calling it "a masterpiece", "a tour de force", "a thriller with empathy".

Lemen reformed in the autumn of 2014, and played four gigs as a part of Renberg's book tour for his new novel, Attack From All Sides.