Jitka Jindřišková – Translator of the Month

We are very pleased to welcome Marit Borkenhagen as the new Chair of the Board at NORLA. The Director of the Norwegian Festival of Literature – Sigrid Undset Days in Lillehammer – succeeds Arne Vestbø, who has held the position for four years.

According to initial evaluations, Norway’s role as Guest of Honour at the Leipzig Book Fair was a major success, especially in terms of media visibility.
During the fair, more than 4,000 print articles were published, with a total advertising value equivalent of 659,290 €. The campaign achieved broad reach, not only featuring well-known authors like Karl Ove Knausgård, Maja Lunde or Vigdis Hjorth but also highlighting voices like Kjersti Anfinnsen, Wencke Mühleisen and Oliver Lovrenski, showcasing the diversity of Norwegian literature.

Each year, NORLA awards grants to support the translation of a wide range of Norwegian books into other languages. In 2024, a total of 529 grants were awarded for translations into 47 languages. NORLA received 546 applications in total, covering 445 works of fiction and 101 nonfiction titles. Of the 529 grants awarded, nearly a third were books for children and young adults — in total 147 publications.

Oh! How we enjoyed spending last week at the Norwegian Festival of Literature, in Lillehammer! Along with crowds of happy festival goers, we celebrated the festival’s 30th anniversary and a wonderfully packed program with a focus on Sápmi. It was a sheer delight to take part in it all.

2024 was another successful and eventful year for Norwegian literature abroad. The German translator Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel was named the first recipient of the new Fosse Prize. At the book fair in Cairo, Norway, as Guest of Honour, was able to build a literary bridge to the Arab world. Preparations for the upcoming Guest of Honour appearances at the book fairs in Leipzig 2025 and Bologna 2026 also moved into detailed planning.

Our Translator of the Month for June is Mariana. She was born into a typical middle-class Argentinian family, making her background a wonderful cultural, ethnic and religious mosaic. Her father was Norwegian, and her mother was Basque and Italian. The Spanish spoken in her childhood home was very diverse, with various different accents and many words imported from other languages, particularly Norwegian and Italian. Mariana has dreamed of travelling the world and learning different languages since childhood – she eventually settled on Norwegian, English, French and Swedish in addition to Spanish.

NORLA launched its largest international initiative outside of Europe when Norway was the Guest of Honour at the Cairo International Book Fair in 2024, one of the world’s largest public book fairs, attracting nearly 5 million visitors.

On April 24, the German translator Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel was awarded the newly established Fosse Prize in a dignified and splendid celebration at the Royal Palace in Oslo. He held a wonderful acceptance speech, and we are now thrilled to be able share his words, by popular demand.

Following Jon Fosse being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 for both prose and drama, a collaborative initiative was launched to promote contemporary Norwegian drama, by PAHN (Performing Arts Hub Norway), The Norwegian Centre for New Playwriting – NCNP (Dramatikkens hus), and NORLA. The initiative is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This week marks the start of NORLA’s new talent program, New Voices for Children and Young Adults. The program is aimed at Norwegian authors writing fiction and non-fiction for young readers, and its goal is to provide emerging authors with international experience through travel, networking, and a deeper understanding of the outward-facing aspects of being a writer.

This week, we have warmly welcomed five translators to Oslo for a two-week stay at Hotel Bondeheimen, our Translators Hotel.

Jon Fosses German translator Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel discovered Fosse by chance at a NORLA seminar in 1992. Here, he discusses the joy and challenges of translating the Nobel laureate, and trusting the power of simplicity.