Successful Translators Seminar at the Norwegian Festival of Literature in Lillehammer

Last week saw the Norwegian Festival of Literature, Sigrid Undset-dagene in Lillehammer, which is the largest literary festival in the Nordic countries.
At the festival NORLA held, for the first time, a translators seminar dedicated to a single book currently being translated into many languages. Eight translators, all of whom are working on Morten Strøksnes’ Havboka (“Shark Drunk”), met to discuss the book and the challenges they have experienced with the text. They also met the author who both enlightened and inspired us with his impressive local and technical knowledge.

Thanks to the translator from Iceland, all of us also got the taste (fermented) shark, of the very same species – håkjerring – that holds the lead in the book Shark Drunk (original title: Havboka).

The translators were (from the left in the small picture):
Halla Kjartansdóttir (Iceland),
Ina Kronenberger (Germany),
Olov Hyllienmark (Sweden),
Sylvia Kall (Germany),
author Morten A. Strøksnes,
Li Jingjing (China),
Paula Stevens (The Netherlands),
Birgitte Steffen Nielsen (Denmark)
and Teng-Chian Kuo (Taiwan).

At NORLA, we would like to thank the translators and Morten A. Strøknes for a both very inspiring and fruitful seminar, and we hope it proved beneficial for the translators’ ongoing work with the book.
Also, we look forward to seeing the book Shark Drunk launched around the world in the year(s) to come!

In addition to the translators seminar, NORLA’s participants were invited to take part in an international publishers’ seminar arranged by The Norwegian Publishers Association (Den norske Forleggerforening), in cooperation with NORLA, where they learned more about current trends in Norwegian fiction and non-fiction, and where six authors presented themselves and their oevre.
(More about the seminar in Norwegian here).

The group also visited Bjerkebæk, the home of Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset. And there was also time for a visit to the Maihaugen open air museum, where the group was able to enter several of the town houses that are decorated in detail from different decennia. This proved a very popular journey back in time!

And last, but not least, the translators were able to freely choose to attend their favourite events from the packed festival program, and some of them also took the opportunity to meet authors they are/have been translating.

Read more about the translators seminar, the book Shark Drunk and the literature festival here.

NORLA travels around the world to promote Norwegian literature
Please have look at some of our other travelogues here.