February’s translator of the month is Norwegian-Spanish Cristina Gómez Baggethun. She is currently a guest in Translated Night in Oslo on February 8th, where she will talk about the reception of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People in Spain between 1962 and 82. Ibsen in Spain at the end of Francoism and the beginning of democracy is the subject of her doctoral thesis at the University of Oslo.

In addition to being a translator of numerous books of all genres, she also participates in the “Ibsen in Translation” project conducted by of the Center for Ibsen Studies (UiO).
Cristina received NORLA’s translator award in 2009 and was awarded Anders Jahre’s culture award in 2012.

In 2019 Norway will be Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The project involves hundreds of literary and cultural programs in Germany throughout 2019 and culminates at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2019. NORLA and the Frankfurt team, together with a number of partners, will be using 2018 to ensure that Norway makes the most of our Guest of Honour year!

The website Books from Norway provides foreign publishers and journalists information, in English, about Norwegian literature as well as an overview of Norwegian translators. NORLA and our partners recently celebrated that the website, at the end of 2017, consisted of over 1000 titles and 150 translator profiles.

NORLA is collaborating with Talent Norway and The Norwegian Publishers’ Association, on the talent development programme, New Voices.

The idea is that engagement with foreign business and readers will contribute to an awareness of, and open up new perspectives on, the participant’s own authorship. NORLA will also make provisions so that the programme can contribute towards new international opportunities and make the participants better equipped to present their books internationally over a long-term.

January’s translator of the month is Norwegian-Arabic Sherin Abdel Wahab, who has recently translated Jon Fosse’s novel Morning and Evening, in collaboration with Amal Al Sadaany.

What does literature do for its readers? Good literature opens both hearts and doors. To quote Olav H. Hauges most famous poem, It is that dream: “that one morning we’ll glide into a cove we didn’t know.” We dream of something similar for Norwegian literature. Through our project – Norway as Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019 – we want Norwegian literature to open hearts and doors for its foreign readers.

In 2019, Norway will be the Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The project is Norway’s largest commitment to cultural-export, ever. As part of the Guest of Honour project, NORLA, in cooperation with The Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture (DOGA), will launch an open architecture competition for the design of an indoor pavilion, which will be 2300 sqm. The competition was announced January 12 2018.

At NORLA the Christmas holiday begins on Friday, December 22.
Our office will open again Tuesday, January 2.

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Norwegian foreign missions have an important role in the Frankfurt project. The Embassy in Rome is one of the foreign missions who are doing their part to put Norwegian literature on the international agenda.

The translator of the month for December is Evgenia Vorobyeva, who translates into Russian. She is of current interest due to her translation of Anders Kvammen’s prize-winning graphic novel Ungdomsskolen (“Junior High”) which was launched in December during the Book Fair Non/fiction in Moscow.
Evgenia has translated a number of Norwegian non-fiction titles and also teaches Norwegian, translation and interpreting at university level.

Read more about Evgenia here.

Those of you who understand Norwegian can read the interview here.

NORLA offers its warmest congratulations to Helga Flatland, winner of The Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize 2017 for her novel A Modern Family!

The winners are: