News

19 authors will travel across Germany in the Crown Princess’s literary train to Frankfurter Buchmesse

On 14–15 October Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Mette-Marit will travel on the literary train from Berlin via Cologne to Frankfurter Buchmesse, accompanied by 19 authors. The literary train in Germany is a collaboration between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NORLA and Deutsche Bahn.

“The literary train in Germany is a unique opportunity to present literature from Norway to a large German-speaking audience. We are really looking forward to having 19 wonderful authors travel with the Crown Princess to Frankfurter Buchmesse,” says Margit Walsø, director of NORLA.

Budget boost for NORLA

The government’s proposed 2020 budget mentions NORLA and the Norwegian Guest of Honour project at Frankfurter Buchmesse: “The project has led to record-high demand for Norwegian literature abroad. Based on this, and as part of the government’s focus on profiling and exporting Norwegian art and culture abroad, an increase of four million kroner to NORLA’s regular subsidy is proposed.”

Klaus Anders - Translator of the Month

The translator of the month for October is Klaus Anders, who is German. He both writes and translates poetry, and Klaus’ first translation was the poems of Olav H. Hauge.
Next week, Norway is Guest of Honour at the Frankfurter Buchmesse, where Hauge and his beloved poem “It Is That Dream” occupy a central place: The motto of the guest of honour project is “The Dream We Carry”, which, in German, has become “Der Traum in uns”.
Now we invite you to get a bit better acquainted with both the translator and Hauge.

See the autumn's selected titles

We at NORLA are proud and happy to present our selected titles for autumn: 32 wonderful fiction and non-fiction books for both adults and children/young adults.

Find your favourites here

Norway is Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019 - see our program!

Norway is Guest of Honour at the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2019. We look immensely forward to let participants from all over the world experience the best of literature and culture from Norway! The Norwegian Guest of Honour project is Norway’s largest cultural export project ever.
The Guest of Honour project comprises hundreds of activities in the German speaking area throughout 2019, and culminates at the book fair in October 2019.

See the complete programme day by day here

*Download the program taking place in the Guest of Honour Pavilion at Frankfurter Buchmesse, both for the Main stage and Stage 2, as PDF here

*Search in the Frankfurter Buchmesse event calendar eller søk i Bokmessens arrangementkalender her

*Receive our daily book fair news by registering at Norway2019.com
(far right at the very bottom of the page)

At our website Norway2019.com you will find more information about the project, events and news.

Poem of the Week - all through 2019

We are very excited to start Norway’s Guest of Honour year ahead of the Frankfurter Buchmesse by offering a brand new series: Poems of the Week, all through 2019!
The poems are available both in English and German translations – as well as in Norwegian – at our website norway2019.com.

Do you want to get updates on what’s happening in the Norwegian Guest of Honour project?

If you’d like to receive our daily newsletter during the book fair, you can sign up for it via our project website, norway2019.com. Scroll all the way down and write your e-mail address in the field at the bottom right-hand side of the page.

To get an overview of NORLA’s activites during the book fair, clikc here

*See the complete programme day by day here or download it as PDF here

*Search in Frankfurter Buchmesse’s event calendar

Åse Birkenheier - Translator of the Month

The translator of the month in September is Åse Birkenheier, who is Norwegian and translates into German.

This year sees the launch of two quite different translations by Åse; Knut Ødegård’s poetry collection It’s time and Asbjørnsen & Moe’s Fairy Tales (Volume 2), for which she has also made the selection of fairy tales. And sharing Norwegian fairy tales with German readers is a thing very close to Åse’s heart. We are pleased that during Frankfurter Buchmesse, she will do just that, in an event at the Norwegian Guest of Honour Pavilion (Saturday October 19, at 11 am on Stage 2 – read more). In addition, she will be presenting fairy tales at the Guest of Honour Pavilion’s Performance table, on Saturday October 19, at 14.30, and on Sunday October 20, at 12.00 og 13.00.

For many years, Åse has been taking actively part in the Deutsch-Norwegische Gesellschaft in Bonn, and she also writes reviews of Norwegian books for readers in Germany.

Happy Women in Translation Month!

Women in Translation, or WIT, is a global collaborative project to help remedy the discrepancy between the amount of works by women published in English translation, and how they are critically received. WITMonth is held held every August, to help promote women writers from around the world who write in languages other than English. Here at NORLA we would like to share our own contribution to WITMonth with you.

Karoline Hippe - Translator of the Month

Translator of the Month for August is German translator Karoline Hippe, who works from Norwegian, Danish and English. Four of her translations from Norwegian are being published this year: children’s book NERD by Mina Lystad, non-fiction book Unongs by Pål Moddi Knutsen, Cappelens Forslag’s Conversation Lexicon (edited by Pil Cappelen Smith), and Lotta Elstad’s novel I Refuse to Think.
In addition to translating, Karoline has taught German as a foreign language and also has experience as a moderator.