Norway as Guest of Honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse 2019 is the country’s largest overall cultural initiative abroad. The main goals set for the initiative by NORLA were achieved. The goals were to renew the foothold of Norwegian literature in Germany, to create new international interest in Norwegian literature, to showcase Norway as a modern cultural nation and to revitalize the relationship between Norway and Germany through cooperation on literary and cultural projects.

The Frankfurter Buchmesse is beyond doubt the world’s most important book fair when it comes to the sale of foreign rights and international dissemination of literature in all genres. The Norwegian guest of honour status was used as an arena for the presentation of a myriad of voices from Norway, as well as sparking the joy of reading and, not least, it served as a platform for promoting freedom of speech.

June’s translator of the month is Michiel Vanhee from Belgium, who translates into Dutch. He works with books of all genres and soon his latest translation will be out; Vinland, the second novel in the popular Jomsviking series by Bjørn Andreas Bull-Hansen.
In addition to being a translator, Michiel has worked as tour guide in the Lofoten islands in 2005, 2008 and 2009 – using six* different languages! When he lived in the north, he even spent some time slaughtering salmon in the winter months. He has also had some, according to himself, rather boring office jobs in Belgium (including working in the translation department of the European Commission in Brussels) before deciding to become a full-time literary translator in 2014.

The corona pandemic has seriously affected the international book industry. Therefore, it is extra gratifying to see that the there is still a strong interest in Norwegian books and also sales of foreign rights. NORLA has obtained an overview of foreign rights to the Norwegian books sold by agents and publishers in Norway during April and May. There are 150 rights sold or renewed!

Every year the Norwegian Festival of Literature at Lillehammer is one of NORLA’s spring highlights, being the largest literary festival in the Nordic countries. As this year’s festival has gone digital so have NORLA’s two annual Lillehammer seminars for international publishers and translators of Norwegian literature. This year focusing on books for children and young adults. It has been a true pleasure getting to meet both familiar and new friends of literature, in our own living rooms.

We are pleased to share eight films made for the webinars. Here you will meet the authors and illustrators presenting their selected books for young readers. There are books in several genres, techniques, themes and for different age groups. We are confident there are new favorites in store for everyone.

Due to the corona situation, it is currently difficult to invite Norwegian authors to international festivals, launches and other events abroad. Foreign publishers, festival organizers and other parties who wish to create digital events with Norwegian authors can therefore apply for subsidy for webinars, podcasts, interviews in the form of film recordings etc. It is also possible to apply for subsidy for advertising and publicity of authors and literature programs in digital media.

Please use the standard application form, skipping to fill in travel details.
There is no application deadline

This time of year we normally set off for Lillehammer to take part in the enjoyable spring adventure which is called the Norwegian festival of Literature. This year, however, the festival goes digital (May 29 – 31) and the events will therefore be available for everyone to enjoy, all around the world!

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

We also recommend her TEDx talk “Insects Are Extraordinary. And They May Save Your Life”.
Hear it here (15 mins).

May’s Translator of the Month is Justė Nepaitė from Lithuania. She mainly translates fiction but also other genres, and her translation of Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle 3 was released in January. Later this year, Jon Fosse’s Scenes from a Childhood / Morning and Evening will be available in her translation. Justė has also translated a number of Norwegian picture books for children, for use among Lithuanian children attending kindergartens in Norway.
In addition to being a translator, Juste has also been a tutor of Norwegian language and culture for a number of years.

For everybody working at NORLA, sparking the joy of reading is a true privilege. And today we are happy to celebrate World Book Day by recommending books from our selected spring titles.

April’s Translator of the Month is Egle Isganaityte-Paulauskiene from Lithuania. She has translated a number of Norwegian books from different genres, mainly fiction including the authors Herbjørg Wassmo and Jostein Gaarder among others. Egle is a member of the Lithuanian Association of Translators of Fiction. In 2009, she received the Lithuanian P.E.N. and the Ministry of Culture award for best translation 2008 for Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses. In addition to translating, Egle works part-time lecturing Norwegian at the University of Vilnius. She has also been a contributor to the Norwegian-Lithuanian Dictionary project.

Today, the Norwegian Minister of Culture, Abid Raja, awarded the prestigious Ministry of Culture’s literary prizes for children and young adult literature published in 2019.
A total of NOK 360,000 were awarded in seven different categories for children’s and YA literature; Best Fiction Book, Best Picture Book, Best Non-fiction Book, First Book Award, Best graphic novel/Cartoon, The Illustration Award and The Translation Award.

These are strange times, and several of us are now living our lives mainly within our own four walls.
We at NORLA are happy to suggest some good reading material, this time with no less than 52 poems from Norway!

The “Poem of the Week” project was a popular part of Norway’s being Guest of Honour at last year’s Frankfurter Buchmesse.
We would like to once again send a big thank you to Tone Carlsen and Annette Vonberg, for the idea and the selection of poems.

Enjoy a poem or two, and please take care!