NORLA's activities during the Norwegian Literature Festival in Lillehammer

International publisher’s seminar
Each year NORLA and The Norwegian Publishers Association invite foreign publishers to a seminar on Norwegian literature at the Norwegian Literature Festival. The seminar was this year advertised as a fellowship, and there was a great deal of interest in participating. This year’s theme is adult fiction. On the seminar’s first day publishers will meet Norwegian colleagues in Oslo. The following day they will go around visiting some of the central Norwegian publishers before taking the train to Lillehammer where, in addition to the culture program, they will see presentations by a group of current Norwegian fiction writers. The seminar is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Translator Seminar
NORLA has been holding translator seminars at the literature festival in Lillehammer for 24 years, and this year’s seminar will be dedicated to adult fiction, where we have invited translators to English, Spanish and Korean.
The translators will meet Bår Stenvik, one of the authors selected to participate in spring’s New Voices program, which is organised by NORLA. All the translators will work on translating an excerpt from the novel The Information, and discuss various challenges in the text.
In addition to participating in the literature festival program, the translators will, along with a group of international publishers, watch presentations from several current Norwegian fiction writers. We look forward to a seminar that will hopefully be useful in the translators’ future work!

Press visitors
During the Norwegian Festival of Literature, NORLA will host a press visit for a group of 13 German journalists. Our guests will get to experience both Oslo and Lillehammer, and they will be introduced to a great number of authors.

Booksellers
Ten booksellers from Germany and Switzerland are also invited to this year’s festival in Lillehammer to meet Norwegian authors as well as Norwegian bookseller colleagues, and to become better acquainted with Norway.

Visit the festival’s website.

Did you know that in 2017, the Norwegian Festival of Literature at Lillehammer was named one of the best literature festivals in the world by Penguin Random House The Writers’ Academy? Read more.

And in 2017, Lillehammer was also named a creative city of literature in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

Upcoming activities

April 14-April 21

Easter Holidays in NORLA

Our office is closed for the Easter holidays as of Monday, April 14. We will be back on Tuesday, April 22.

Wishing you all a Happy Easter!

April 23-April 26

Oslo, Norway

Seminar for aspiring translators of Norwegian literature

NORLA aims to recruit more translators of Norwegian Literature. We look forward to welcoming interested participants to take part in our seminar for new translators, which will be held in Oslo from April 23-26, 2025.

May 1

Deadline: Nominate candidates for NORLA’s Translator's Award 2025

NORLA annually hands out an award to a talented emerging translator of Norwegian literature. The award is given for translations directly from Norwegian as an encouragement towards continued efforts.
The 2025 award will be given to a translator of fiction.

We would very much like to hear from you about deserving candidates!