The 2022 Norwegian Festival of Literature at Lillehammer took place in May/June. NORLA offered, in close co-operation with several parties, a rich program with activities for several groups invited from abroad: publishers and editors, translators, booksellers and journalists, as well as literary agents from Norway and abroad – plus of course a great number of authors.

Please read more in our overview which may be downloaded below.

December’s translator of the month is Sara Culeddu, who translates from Norwegian and Swedish into Italian. She has studied Norwegian language and literature in Florence and spent a few years living in Oslo after university; now she is an associate professor of Scandinavian studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and is also a translator. She collaborates with many Italian publishers and has translated Knut Hamsun, Hanne Ørstavik, Erika Fatland, Line Baugstø, Monica Kristensen, Erling Kagge and Halldis Moren Vesaas, among others.

Norwegian authors were at the centre of attention when Norway was the Guest of Honour at the 2022 Book Fair in Warsaw, 26 – 29 May.
30 writers and illustrators from Norway featured in 50 different events, and met engaged Polish readers on various books fair stages and in long signing queues.

Read NORLA’s report on the Guest of Honour project here

Now you can apply to participate in our large-scale conference for translators of literature from Norway, at Lily Country Club, Kløfta.

The conference will provide professional training, expertise and inspiration to experienced translators.
The program will offer a rich diversity of topics related to Norwegian language and literature, translation and networking, and it will also contribute to the recruitment of new translators of Norwegian literature.

We will invite 150 translators from the applications received, for participation in the conference. The participants will be chosen to reflect the position and dissemination of literature from Norway in the different language markets.

November’s translator of the month is Andrea Romanzi, who translates from Norwegian and English into Italian. Starting with fiction in 2018, Andrea has translated novels by Norwegian authors Gert Nygårdshaug, Ruth Lillegraven, Ingebjørg Berg Holm and Victoria Kielland, and was presented an award for upcoming translator of the year in 2019. He lived in Bergen for several years while studying at the University of Bergen, and then moved to England to take a PhD in translation studies and publishing history. In addition to translating, Andrea teaches Scandinavian languages and literature at the Sapienza University of Rome, and Statale in Milan. Along with friends from his doctoral studies, he also runs a multilingual magazine called LONGITŪDINĒS which is devoted to creative writing, translation and art.

For NORLA it was a great experience to be back at the Frankfurter Buchmesse last week together with Norwegian publishers and agents. After two years of pandemic, the book fair was back as a dynamic and inspiring meeting place for the international book industry. We (re-)connected with translators, publishers, literary agents, scouts and partners.
Enjoy an overview of NORLA’s activities below.

NORLA will be organizing a large-scale conference for translators of literature from Norway, on 26-28 June 2023. The event will take place at Kløfta, just outside of Oslo.
This will be our first big translators conference since 2014!

We are happy to offer insightful interviews with the authors and illustrators of our 24 Selected Titles of the autumn.
Get better aquainted with the books and also the people who wrote them!

The Translator of the Month for October is Marta Roķe who translates to Latvian. Her translations include the children’s book series about Doctor Proctor by Jo Nesbø, and she is now in the process of finishing the William Wenton series by Bobbie Peers. Marta has studied the cultural connections between Norway and Latvia, and translation. She has many years of experience with teaching Norwegian, and she helped establish a cultural center dedicated to language — Valodu māja — House of Languages in Riga.

We at NORLA want to showcase the crucial work translators do, and in the last week of September we will join the worldwide celebration of the patron saint of translators, St. Jerome, or St. Hieronymus as he is known in Norway.
Even though our task is promoting literature from Norway, we like to use the occasion of The Interational Translation Day – in Norway called “Hieronymus Day” – to recommend good books that have been translated well into Norwegian.

NORLA is happy and proud to share the news that Norway will be the Guest of Honour in Bologna in 2026 – the world’s most important book fair for children’s literature.