From April 26 to 28, the German-Norwegian literature festival “On the way to Frankfurt” was held at Litteraturhuset in Oslo. And the festival was a huge success, with over 5000 people in the attendance!

At NORLA we are happy to welcome four translators to Oslo and a two-week stay at Hotell Bondeheimen. And this spring markes a jubilee, as our guests take part in the popular scheme’s tenth season!
The four translators are:

Ina Kronenberger (German)
Vera-Agnes Pap (Hungarian)
Pluschkat (German)
Kaija Anttonen (Finnish)

In addition to being Guest of Honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse, Norway was also the focus country at the European Film Market (EFM) at the Berlinalen in February; and in April Norway was the partner-country at the world’s largest jazz trade-fair jazzahead! in Bremen.

At NORLA, we are very happy to be part of “Nordic Books of the Month” – a NordLit campaign promoting Nordic literature!
During the next month we will publish and share reading tips on interesting Nordic books together with our fellow Nordic literature export centres.

April’s translator of the month is Kateřina Krištůfková from the Czech Republic. She is the elected leader of the newly established association for translators of Nordic literature in the Czech Republic: Překladatelé Severu (Czech Translators of the North).

The Leipzig Book Fair, attended by 200,000 visitors, is the largest literary arena in Germany after the Frankfurt Book Fair. Our presence there from 21-24 March was one of the highlights of Norway’s literature program for spring 2019.

On the eve of the London International Book Fair, the New Voices took part in a publisher’s seminar at Free Word Centre in London.

Marianne Kaurin, Jan Kristoffer Dale, Tore Skeie and Bår Stenvik presented themselves and their authorship to an interested audience of British publishers. (See the presentations by clicking on their names).
The seminar was organized by NORLA in collaboration with The Norwegian Embassy in London.

Today, the Norwegian Minister of Culture, Trine Skei Grande, awarded the prestigious 2018 Ministry of Culture’s literary prizes for children and young adult literature published in 2018.
A total of NOK 415,000 were awarded in eight 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, The Translation Award and The Special Award.

We at NORLA are proud and happy to present our selected titles for spring: 33 wonderful fiction and non-fiction books for both adults and children/young adults.

Find your favourites here

Translator of the Month for March is Reiko Hidani who translates into Japanese. She’s in the news because her translation of Steffen Kverneland’s Munch has been nominated for Japan’s The Best Translation Award. She has also translated the recently published book What is Economy?, aimed at children and young people and written by Gunhild J. Ecklund.

It’s 8 March today and to mark the occasion of the International Women’s Day we are happy to share a thought-provoking text about feminism written by author Marta Breen:

In 2016, I wrote the book 60 damer du skulle ha møtt (60 Women You Should Know About) together with my partner in crime, illustrator Jenny Jordahl. It was a graphic novel about Norwegian female pioneers: the first Norwegian feminists, the first woman to become a professor, the first woman to become a priest and so on. Both Jenny and I are fascinated by such stories and not least by the courage of these women.

In this annual exhibition publishers from all around the world can show their current titles on the Guest of Honour. The exhibition “Books on Norway” in the Guest of Honour pavilion, with about 500 – 1,000 titles, collects translated Norwegian literature as well as books about the Guest of Honour. I.e. politics, culture, language, history and society.