Previous activities

During the Translated Days festival (“Oversatte dager”), NORLA will be taking the opportunity to into invite Norwegian-translators for breakfast “at home” with us, in other words at our office in Observatoriegt. 1B, on Friday March 1st. Between 0930 and 1100.

There will be simple refreshments and pleasant mingling, with colleagues and those of us who work at NORLA.
We look forward to a great start to this great year for Norwegian literature where Norway is Guest of Honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse, and also to Book Year 2019 which is being held all over Norway.

All translators of Norwegian literature are very much welcome, whether you live in Norway or abroad!

Read more on how to register here (in Norwegian)

Publishers, agents and translators abroad and in Norway can apply to NORLA for subsidies for sample translations.
Read more here.

NOTE that agents and publishers in Norway can also apply to NORLA, for support for extended sample translations; made possible by funds from the Ministry of Culture as a step towards making Norwegian literature exports an industry.

Translators of Norwegian literature may also apply to NORLA for subsidies for sample translations from books of interest. For translators, there are no application deadlines.
Read more (in Norwegian) here.

The Frankfurt Book Fair’s New York office and Publishing Perspectives are, for the second time, organising a Rights Salon for Children’s Literature in New York. Hege Langrusten from NORLA will be taking part to help expand the contact network, particularly within children’s books.

Read more about the event here.

February 1 is the application deadline for translators of Norwegian literature regarding stays at NORLA’s Translators hotel spring 2019 (weeks 19-20, i.e. as of Monday May 6th through Sunday May 19th).
Please note that the offer is only available for translators who translate directly from Norwegian.

The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have contributed towards the scheme.

Read more (in Norwegian) here.

Norway is the focus country at this year’s Berlinale, and Nils Petter Moland’s film adaptation of Per Petterson’s novel Out Stealing Horses will be shown as part of the main program.
The Norwegian Film Institute has set up it’s own house “Norway House” where a range of activities will take place.

Nor is literature forgotten:
On Monday February 11th. at 15.00-17.30, the pitch seminar “Books at Berlinale” will be held at the House of Representatives, where Oslo Literary Agency will pitch Simon Stranger’s novel Keep Saying Their Names.
The same day, at 10.00-12.00, a separate pitch seminar will be held at Norway House, where Norwegian literature agents, and German agents and publishers, will meet German and Norwegian film producers to present selected titles.

The five authors participating in spring’s New Voices program, will receive a small introduction to international rights work and NORLA’s activities, plus an intensive course in presentation technique by translator and actor Erik Skuggevik.

Read more about the authors here.

And read more about the New Voices program here.

At the Nordic Children’s Book Conference, NBBK, in Stavanger, NORLA presents the event “Borderless Women’s Rights”, Wednesday 6 February at 14:30.
Marta Breen and Jenny Jordahl have published the non-fiction cartoon Women in Battle (2018). Foreign rights to the book have been sold to 21 countries. But in the United States, Jordahl had to draw clothes over naked nipples, and in Russia the book is only allowed for the over 18’s.
What kind of limitations meet Nordic literature abroad, and where to draw the line – quite literally – for censorship?

NB: For participants in Norway only.
In 2019, Norway will be the Guest of Honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse. This means that Norway, under the direction of NORLA, will be present at numerous events in Germany throughout 2019.
One of these events will be the Leipzig Book Fair on March 21-24th, which along with its Manga-Comic-Con, is a great forum for cosplay. Siri Pettersen’s second book in the Raven Rings series is due to be published in German translation, and to mark this NORLA would like to have someone from Norway appear as a cosplayer from the Raven Rings trilogy in Leipzig.

Read more (in Norwegian) about the competition here.

Read more about the translation subsidy for Norwegian non-fiction here.

Foreign publishers may also apply for production subsidies for the publication of Norwegian non-fiction containing a large number of illustrations or with exceptionally demanding technical production requirements.
Read more about the scheme here.

Welcome to an evening dedicated to contemporary Norwegian children’s literature at the Nordische Botschaften / Felleshus at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Berlin!
23. January. 2019 — 19:00.

The event on Facebook.

Georg Grosz meets Mulysses at Slush Mountain
Modern illustration from Norway

2019 is Norway’s year as Guest of Honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse, and the first event in this Guest of Honour year will be the touring exhibition "Georg Grosz meets Mulysses on Slush Mountain. Modern illustration from Norway.” The exhibition will open at Felleshuset, at the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin, on January 23rd.

Once again, NORLA will be participating in the Jaipur Literature Festival!
This is the world’s largest free literature festival, with an overwhelming number of writers, participants and audiences from India and the rest of the world. The Nordic countries and Norway are well represented this year, with several Nordic authors taking part. From Norway, there will be Maja Lunde, who will talk both about her adult books and about writing for children. Hanne Ørstavik will participate in a panel of Nordic authors, along with Henriette Rostrup, Laura Lindstedt and Einar Karasson, who will be interviewed by Margit Walsø.

We have the pleasure of inviting international publishers, editors, sub-agents and scouts to apply for fellowship to the Norwegian Festival of Literature at Lillehammer, May 2019.

The fellowship program is arranged by NORLA in collaboration with the Norwegian Publishers’ Association, and is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Read more

Representatives from NORLA’s staff will be attending a seminar with our Nordic colleagues, January 16-18.
The employees at the Nordic literary offices meet annually, and this year the meeting will take place in Helsinki, Finland.

We look forward to exchanging experiences and future plans with our colleagues!

The Nordic literary offices all administer The Nordic Council of Ministers’ funding scheme for the translation of literature and drama from one Nordic language to another. Read more about the scheme here.

NORLA administrates the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ scheme for travel grants for authors and lecturers who will visit institutions of higher learning abroad where instruction is given in the Norwegian language.
Read more here.