Fr. Kjell Arild Pollestad (born 27 May 1949 in Hå, Jæren) is a Norwegian author, essayist, translator, theologian, philologist, Catholic priest and Dominican. Pollestad studied Russian language and Lutheran theology at the University of Oslo, graduating as cand. theol. in 1977. He graduated in Catholic theology at the in 1979, and studied ancient Oriental languages (Syriac and Coptic) at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome from 1979 to 1981. He is fluent in a large number of languages. Converting to Catholicism and joining the Dominican Order in 1975, he was ordained a Catholic priest by Bishop John Willem Gran on 12 April 1980. He was head of the press office of the Catholic Church in Norway 1981–1988, and parish priest in Tønsberg 1988–1996. He has lived in the monastery of St. Ja