On 14–15 October Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Mette-Marit will travel on the literary train from Berlin via Cologne to Frankfurter Buchmesse, accompanied by 19 authors. The literary train in Germany is a collaboration between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NORLA and Deutsche Bahn.

“The literary train in Germany is a unique opportunity to present literature from Norway to a large German-speaking audience. We are really looking forward to having 19 wonderful authors travel with the Crown Princess to Frankfurter Buchmesse,” says Margit Walsø, director of NORLA.

The government’s proposed 2020 budget mentions NORLA and the Norwegian Guest of Honour project at Frankfurter Buchmesse: “The project has led to record-high demand for Norwegian literature abroad. Based on this, and as part of the government’s focus on profiling and exporting Norwegian art and culture abroad, an increase of four million kroner to NORLA’s regular subsidy is proposed.”

We at NORLA are proud and happy to present our selected titles for autumn: 32 wonderful fiction and non-fiction books for both adults and children/young adults.

Find your favourites here

Norway is Guest of Honour at the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2019. We look immensely forward to let participants from all over the world experience the best of literature and culture from Norway! The Norwegian Guest of Honour project is Norway’s largest cultural export project ever.
The Guest of Honour project comprises hundreds of activities in the German speaking area throughout 2019, and culminates at the book fair in October 2019.

See the complete programme day by day here

*Download the program taking place in the Guest of Honour Pavilion at Frankfurter Buchmesse, both for the Main stage and Stage 2, as PDF here

*Search in the Frankfurter Buchmesse event calendar eller søk i Bokmessens arrangementkalender her

*Receive our daily book fair news by registering at Norway2019.com
(far right at the very bottom of the page)

At our website Norway2019.com you will find more information about the project, events and news.

If you’d like to receive our daily newsletter during the book fair, you can sign up for it via our project website, norway2019.com. Scroll all the way down and write your e-mail address in the field at the bottom right-hand side of the page.

To get an overview of NORLA’s activites during the book fair, clikc here

*See the complete programme day by day here or download it as PDF here

*Search in Frankfurter Buchmesse’s event calendar

The translator of the month in September is Åse Birkenheier, who is Norwegian and translates into German.

This year sees the launch of two quite different translations by Åse; Knut Ødegård’s poetry collection It’s time and Asbjørnsen & Moe’s Fairy Tales (Volume 2), for which she has also made the selection of fairy tales. And sharing Norwegian fairy tales with German readers is a thing very close to Åse’s heart. We are pleased that during Frankfurter Buchmesse, she will do just that, in an event at the Norwegian Guest of Honour Pavilion (Saturday October 19, at 11 am on Stage 2 – read more). In addition, she will be presenting fairy tales at the Guest of Honour Pavilion’s Performance table, on Saturday October 19, at 14.30, and on Sunday October 20, at 12.00 og 13.00.

For many years, Åse has been taking actively part in the Deutsch-Norwegische Gesellschaft in Bonn, and she also writes reviews of Norwegian books for readers in Germany.

Women in Translation, or WIT, is a global collaborative project to help remedy the discrepancy between the amount of works by women published in English translation, and how they are critically received. WITMonth is held held every August, to help promote women writers from around the world who write in languages other than English. Here at NORLA we would like to share our own contribution to WITMonth with you.

Translator of the Month for August is German translator Karoline Hippe, who works from Norwegian, Danish and English. Four of her translations from Norwegian are being published this year: children’s book NERD by Mina Lystad, non-fiction book Unongs by Pål Moddi Knutsen, Cappelens Forslag’s Conversation Lexicon (edited by Pil Cappelen Smith), and Lotta Elstad’s novel I Refuse to Think.
In addition to translating, Karoline has taught German as a foreign language and also has experience as a moderator.

Wednesday, August 14th was a big day for Norwegian literature: ten Norwegian books were released during Shanghai International Literature Week. The books are being published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House.

“Over the past five years, Norwegian literature has experienced a huge increase in popularity in China. It’s mainly been literature for children and young adults – illustrated books in particular – and non-fiction for adults. It’s therefore especially gratifying that Shanghai Translation Publishing House’s efforts are now giving Chinese readers access to a wide selection of Norwegian novels in addition to an important non-fiction book,” says Margit Walsø, director of NORLA.

400 publications from and about Norway in German in 2018/2019!

Norway’s status as Guest of Honor country at the Frankfurt Book Fair this year has led to a record interest in literature from and about Norway in German-speaking countries. From September 2018 to December 2019, German-language publishers will have released 400 titles from and about Norway. The translators are making a formidable effort.

On our website norway2019.com you will always find an up-to-date overview of literary and cultural events in Germany as well as articles about Norwegian literature, interviews with translators and booksellers and much more!

See the events here.

The month’s translator for June/July is Norwegian-German Ebba D. Drolshagen. In addition to translating Norwegian literature within different genres, she is also the author of several non-fiction books including one about the “German Girls” in Norway (the mistreatment of women who had relationships with German soldiers during WW2). She is currently in the spotlight with her popular travel guide Instructions to Norway (in German: Gebrauchsanweisung für Norwegen), which offers an entertaining introduction to Norway and Norwegians. The book will be published in a new and updated edition this year – in connection with Norway as Guest of Honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse. In addition Ebba has translated a literary travel guide to Oslo written by Erik Fosnes Hansen, which will also be published in connection with the book fair. Ebba’s translation of Mona Høvring’s Something That Helps was published in spring and has received a lot of positive attention.h2.