At NORLA, we celebrate with the graphic novel Women in Battle by Marta Breen and Jenny Jordahl (ill.). This inspiring and important book is (being) translated into 27 languages.
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NORLA’s subsidy scheme for export and market initiatives will contribute to boosting exports, demand and market development for Norwegian books and authors abroad; thereby increasing revenue for the Norwegian literary agencies/publishers concerned. Since the scheme began in November 2019, we have received many strong applications. There are many initiatives being planned – and we are now ready to announce the first projects to be awarded grants this year.

Four export and market initiatives have been selected in this round:

It is uplifting to be able to confirm that interest in Norwegian literature abroad has continued to be remarkably high during a year when so much has changed as a result of a pandemic. When physical meetings and travel are not possible, literature can still provide knowledge and experience. In 2020, NORLA received a record number of applications for translation support – as many as 660 applications – surpassing the number of applications in 2018, which amounted to 651.

Anastasia Naumova translates both fiction and non-fiction; from Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, and from English to Russian. She is also employed as a lecturer at Moscow University of the Humanities, where she and her colleagues are doing their best to cultivate a new generation of translators. Her latest translation is Good Dogs Don’t Make It to the South Pole by Hans-Olav Thyvold, and she is currently working on My Struggle: Book 4 by Karl Ove Knausgård.

Today is the Sami National Day, and everyone at NORLA offers our warmest congratulations to all our Sami friends and the Sami people: Læhkoeh biejjine – Vuorbbe biejvijn – Lihkku beivviin – Gratulerer med dagen!

We are extremely happy and proud to learn that Norway’s Guest of Honour Pavilion at the 2019 Frankfurter Buchmesse is nominated for the 2022 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award.

A big congratulations to the architects LCLA office and Manthey Kula!

We thank NORLA’s chairman of the board Aslak Sira Myhre, director of the National Library, for his four years of effort. We are particularly grateful for the formidable contribution he made during NORLA’s planning, implementation and the follow-up work for Norway as Guest of Honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse 2019.

At the same time, we welcome our new chairman of the board, Arne Vestbø, secretary general of the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association, NFFO.

At NORLA we are happy to be starting the new year as a strengthened and pro-active organisation – and a new visual identity. NORLA and NODE have worked together to develop an identity that will make NORLA more visible.

Our translator of the month is Nobuyoshi Mori, who translates into Japanese. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Russian from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and later a master’s degree in German at the same university. In the period 1983-85 he studied Norwegian at the University of Oslo and since returning to Japan he has worked as a language teacher – and since 2006 as a professor. He has also taught German and Scandinavian languages (mainly Norwegian and Icelandic) at various universities and language schools. In March 2019 he retired, but still teaches Scandinavian languages part-time. He is now responsible for teaching Norwegian at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to future diplomats who are to be stationed in Norway. He is a language teacher first and foremost, he says, but translates from Scandinavian languages when the opportunity presents itself.

As of this year, Norway holds a seat in the United Nations’s Security Council. We will be a member of the Council until 31 December 2022.
At NORLA we are celebrating this international commitment with a sneak peak – on Instagram – in to our book shelves. You might call them a miniature UN of books!

NORLA opens the doors for Norwegian literature abroad. And in 2020, this has meant digital solutions and meetings. In collaboration with the Norwegian embassies abroad and on our own initiative, we have arranged 20 different webinars involving a total of 354 participants from 26 countries (of these 108 were Norwegian). We have created tailor-made webinars for publishers and translators in markets all around the world. We have presented both NORLA’s selected titles and several other authors.

“Art in numbers 2019” is an annual report about the income of Norway’s arts industry within literature, music, visual arts and performing arts. The report is prepared by Rambøll Management Consulting for Arts Council Norway.

The report for 2019 shows an increase in the sales of foreign rights to Norwegian books: real income from the sales of rights, co-production and royalties from abroad has increased by 11.2 percent annually since 2013. Norwegian agents and publishers reported 1,082 new contracts in 2019. From 2019, the income for Norwegian authors via foreign agencies is also included in the figures. The foreign agents reported 69 contracts with Norwegian authors in 2019.