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.

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.

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.

Leipziger Buchmesse is an important venue for encounters between writers and their readers – and a unique arena for cosplay. In connection to Siri Pettersen’s Raven Rings trilogy we organised a cosplay competition in Norway. Now the winner has been selected.

At NORLA, we are looking forward to next week’s Translated Days festival (“Oversatte dager”), at the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset) in Oslo.
From Thursday February 28th through Saturday, March 2nd there will be a myriad of translation-related events and entry is free. Most events are held in Norwegian.

NORLA will be hosting two events:

Friday March 1: at 13-13.45: Ut og selge bøker

Saturday, March 2: at. 12-12.45: Da Gleden med skjeden ble til The Wonder Down Under

The complete festival programme is available (in Norwegian) here

The Translator of the Month for February is the comparative literary scholar, editor and translator Johanna Domokos. She is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts at Károli University in Budapest, and the coordinator of the Translation and Book Production Laboratory at the University of Bielefeld’s Faculty of Language and Literature. Together with her students – who studied Sámi language just for the projects- she published about a dozen books of Sámi and Nordic literature in German, English. For the 2019 Bookf Fair in Frankfurt together with Chsritine Schlosser and Michael Riessler they publish the first comprehensive anthology of Sami poetry translated into German. Their work is supported by NORLA.

We look forward to all the meetings and experiences ahead!
There are many highlights ahead, both in Norway and abroad, in our Guest of Honour year at the Frankfurter Buchmesse.
Below we have listed some of the activites that will take place in the months to come.

Norwegian literature abroad is growing. In 2018, NORLA granted support for the translation of 639 books by Norwegian authors, into 45 languages. Making 2018 the best year there has ever been for Norwegian literature in translation.

– Never, in NORLA’s 40-year history, have so many titles been granted translation support, says Margit Walsø, NORLA’s director.

Our January translator of the month is Banu Gürsaler Syvertsen from Turkey. Banu has recently translated Dag Solstad’s Shyness and Dignity, and is currently featured in the Nordic-themed January edition of the journal SabitFikir.

Author and illustrator Kristin Roskifte took part in the children’s literature festival Bookaroo, in New Delhi, December 1st and 2nd, 2018.

We have been fortunate enough to get a postcard from her. Read it here: