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Ola Bauer (24 July 1943 – 12 June 1999) was a Norwegian novelist and playwright. He made his literary debut with the novel Graffiti in 1976, under the pseudonym Jo Vendt. Among his best known books are Humlehjertene (1980), Rosapenna (1983), and Metoden (1985). Bauer was awarded Gyldendal's Endowment in 1982, and the Dobloug Prize in 1998. He died of cancer in 1999.

Early life
Bauer was born 24 July 1943 in Holmenkollåsen, Oslo, during the German occupation of Norway. His father was a baker, and an active member of the Norwegian resistance movement. In 1943, he was arrested, while the rest of the family went undercover in Hadeland. Bauer's father was eventually deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he died three months before the end of the war. Bauer's family continuously moved from place to place, and Bauer had a hard time adjusting to the changes, and finding friends. He found himself consistently making friends with children of traitors, those who had supported the Germans during the war. "We were all innocent children, who had to pay for our fathers' choices. We could understand eachother", Bauer later said. He received examen artium in 1965, on his second attempt. Afterwards, he went to sea.

Literary career
Bauer had grown up with the notion that his father was a war hero, having died as a prisoner of war. As an adult, he learned that his father had in fact died of methanol poisoning, having gotten hold of what he thought was alcohol. In his autobiographical debut novel, Grafitti (1976), Bauer confronted his mother with the fact that she had kept this secret from him. "I grew up in a lie about a man I have never known", he commented. Because of the novel's contents, he decided to publish it under a pseudonym, Jo Vendt.