the publication of "the song of the red ruby" in 1957 ignited what became one of the most famous court cases in norwegian history. mykle and his publisher harald grieg were accused of writing and publishing immoral and obscene material. mykle's defense attorney was johan bernhard hjort. mykle and grieg were both acquitted, but the remaining copies of the book were ordered withdrawn from the market. the norwegian supreme court overturned the ruling on the confiscation in 1958. the court case and the pressure caused by the media attention changed mykle for the rest of his life, and he became a recluse. no photographs were published of him after 1957 and he chose to associate almost exclusively with friends and family. in the autumn of 1993, however, mykle had a series of conversations with nils kåre jacobsen, an employee at mykle's publishing house, gyldendal. these talks were later turned into the book "mine bøker er musikk: møter med agnar mykle" ( - "my books are music: meetings with agnar mykle")