News

Karolina Drozdowska – Translator of the Month for August

August’s Translator of the Month is Karolina Drozdowska from Poland. She works mainly with fiction and her translation of Nina Lykke’s novel Natural Causes (original title “Full spredning”) has just been published in Poland by the publisher Pauza. In addition to being a translator, Karolina is an assistant professor at the Institute of Scandinavian and Finnish Studies at the University of Gdansk and she is also secretary of the board at the Polish Literary Translators’ Association (Stowarzyszenie Tłumaczy Literatury).
In 2013, Karolina won NORLA’s causerie (kåseri) competition with her text about series of commercial fiction, Jens Bjørneboe and leading a double life. She has translated more than 90 books.

Summer Greetings from NORLA

Summer is approaching and there is optimism in the air. We are all motivated by the prospect of brighter times and a more predictable autumn ahead.

Throughout the pandemic, NORLA has maintained a high level of digital travelling. This spring we built on the experience gained from the numerous webinars we held for industry contacts last year. These webinars allow foreign publishers and editors to meet Norwegian agents. They are also shown NORLA’s films presenting this spring’s selected titles in which the authors themselves talk about their books. Most of the webinars are arranged in close collaboration with Norwegian embassies and consulates, and some are also in collaboration with key translators. This fruitful collaboration is something we are very grateful for.

Rosie Hedger - Translator of the Month for June and July

June and July’s translator of the month is Rosie Hedger, who translates from Norwegian into English. Rosie Hedger was born in Scotland and completed her MA (Hons) in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Edinburgh, as part of which she spent a year at the University of Oslo taking courses in Norwegian literature and researching for her dissertation on contemporary Norwegian fiction. Since completing her studies, Rosie has lived in Sweden and Denmark, and she is now based in the north of England. Her translation of Gine Cornelia Pedersen’s Zero was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize in 2019, and her translation of Agnes Ravatn’s The Bird Tribunal won an English PEN Translates Award in 2016. Her translations of Marie Aubert’s Grown Ups and Helga Flatland’s One Last Time are both due out this summer.

New service: NORLA's (digital) translator’s pastry shop!

The translator’s pastry shop will open on Wednesday 23 June, at 15 (Norwegian time) to translators from Norwegian. It will be an informal, hour-long meeting, held once a month on Zoom, where we will eat something nice together that each participant has baked for themselves.

Happy Pride - Reading tips for children and young adults

June sees the celebration of Pride Month worldwide and today is the first day of Oslo Pride, which will take place both in the city and online. On Saturday June 26 there will be a digital parade as well as a boat parade on the Oslo fjord.
At NORLA, we are happy to join in the celebration by sharing a selection of LGBT+ themed books available for children and young adults. Below we have included titles updated from last year’s list made by IBBY Norway (International Board on Books for Young People).
HAPPY PRIDE!

High level of international activity during the Norwegian Festival of Literature

This week The Norwegian Festival of Literature takes place in Lillehammer. And from May 25th to the 28th, NORLA arranged a number of webinars for our international contacts. We are proud to be the Norwegian Festival of Literature’s partner for this year’s innovation Lillehammer Rights.

Award Bonanza at the Norwegian Festival of Literature

This week, the Norwegian Literature Festival kicks off in Lillehammer and true to tradition, the festival is also the perfect backdrop for the awarding of literary prizes: The Dobloug Prize, The Booksellers Association’s awards and scholarships, The Norwegian Youth Literature Award (“Uprisen”), and also The Norwegian Fiction Translator Fund Award.

At NORLA, we offer our warmest congratulations to all the winners!

Happy World Bee Day!

Today is World Bee Day, and at NORLA, we would like to celebrate by sharing a TEDx talk and a podcast with Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, professor in conservation biology and author of the very interesting and amusing book Extraordinary Insects (original title: Insektenes planet).

Her TEDx talk is called “Insects Are Extraordinary. And They May Save Your Life”.
Hear it here (15 mins).

We also recommend the podcast which offers an interview in English (second link, approx. 30 mins), and a reading from the book in German and Norwegian (first link, 44 mins).
Hear it here.

Three projects receive grants for export and market initiatives abroad

NORLA’s subsidy scheme for export and market initiatives will boost demand, exports, and market development for Norwegian books and authors abroad, The scheme supports the development of good marketing ideas and initiatives for titles which have a strong potential, which contribute to new initiatives or put wind in the sails of ongoing projects with international partners. There are many initiatives being planned – and we are now ready to announce the second round of projects to be awarded grants this year.

Andreas Donat - Translator of the Month for May

Our translator of the month for May is Andreas Donat (b. 1983) from Austria. He is fairly new to the world of translation having started in 2018 and has since then translated Hanne Ørstavik and Roskva Koritzinsky among others. Andreas is also a classical pianist and in the years prior to corona you could sometimes hear him performing at various concert venues around the world. He grew up in Vienna, lived in Oslo for several years, and now lives in Berlin.
Andreas’s work will soon be in the spotlight with Gine Cornelia Pedersen’s Zero (original title: Null) and Hanne Ørstavik’s Ti amo.