The translators are the most important stakeholders we have for bringing Norwegian literature to the world. Their work is of vital importance and to showcase this work in January 2015 we started the interview series «Translator of the Month». Here we become better acquainted with translators from the Norwegian language and their challenging work, which introduces Norwegian literature to all the different languages of the world.

The translator of the month for April is Jarka Vrbova. She has translated a long list of Norwegian books into Czech and in 2009 was conferred with the honour Knight 1st Class by the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for her contribution to the promotion of Norwegian-Czech alliances, particularly in the fields of literature and culture.
In addition to her work as a translator, she teaches Norwegian at Charles University in Prague and has thereby played a wholly central role in the work of spreading enthusiasm for Norwegian language and literature in the Czech Republic and also in terms of recruiting budding translators. We at NORLA are very thankful for all her work!

This spring Jarka is of current interest with all of three translations: Jostein Gaarder’s Dukkeføreren (The Puppeteer), Henrik Svensen’s nonfiction book Bergtatt (In High Places) and Bjørg Vik’s Små nøkler, store rom (Small Keys, Large Rooms).
Read our interview (in Norwegian) here.

Norway will be Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019.

Programme for NORLA’s Planning and Input Conference, Wednesday 26 April 2017
Sentralen (Marmorsalen), Øvre Slottsgt. 3, Oslo

PROGRAMME

The Norwegian Guest of Honour project for the book fair in Frankfurt will, in addition to literature, include an extensive cultural framework programme, where the Guest of Honour nation will present a panorama of its life of arts and culture throughout the entire city of Frankfurt during the autumn when the book fair takes place.

Frankfurt has many good museums and culture institutions that can choose to take part in this, should they find that the Guest of Honour has exciting things to offer.

Such a culture programme must, in the same manner as the publication of a book, be prepared well in advance. And as a first step, Project Manager Halldór Guðmundsson and Culture Coordinator Marit Ingvill Sande visited Frankfurt in the end of March and were received with open arms and great interest.

Germany, in other words! Leipziger Buchmesse takes place in an exhibition hall located 20 minutes from the city centre by S-Bahn but can nonetheless boast of attracting 285,000 visitors to a city with a mere 500,000 residents. How do they achieve this?

The Riverton Prize is the annual Norwegian Crime Fiction Award. Every year a jury of distinguished crime literature readers pick the best crime novel of the year, and for 2016 they picked Torkil Damhaugs novel A Fifth Season in great competition with Karin Fossum, Chris Tvedt, Unni Lindell and Bjørn Olav Nordahl.

At NORLA we’d like to celebrate Waffle Day (Vaffelens dag) by sharing our best Waffle booktip:

Their Majesties The King and Queen host the state visit from the President of Iceland, His Excellency Mr Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and Ms Eliza Reid, 21- 23 March. As part of the programme we had the honour of receiving them all, and Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mette-Marit, in our offices.

We invite you to take a closer look at our selected titles for the spring of 2017 here.

You may also find selected titles – Highlights – in different genres from 2016/2017 and previous years, in our so called “Backlists” here.

The Norwegian Minister of Culture, Linda Hofstad Helleland, recently awarded the 2016 Ministry of Culture’s literary prizes for children and young adults.

We congratulate the winners:

NORLA’s Translator translator of the month for March is Sara Koch, who translates into Danish. Her most recent achievement of note comprises no less than three translations, all of which will be published now in March: Geir Gulliksen’s The History of a Marriage (Historie om et ekteskap), Karl Ove Knausgård’s On summer (Om sommeren) and Dag Solstad’s Shyness and Dignity (Genanse og verdighet). 
Sara has translated a total of 35 titles from Norwegian and was the first to translate Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle series in its entirety.

If you read Norwegian you will find our interview and become better acquainted with Sara here.

See many of Sara’s translations of Norwegian titles available in the National Library of Norway database here.

You may also find all previous interviews in our Translator of the Month-series (in Norwegian) here.

The winners are:

Best fiction title:

Vigdis Hjorth
Wills and Testaments (original title: Arv og miljø)
(Published by Cappelen Damm)
About the book and read the statement from the jury

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

Best non-fiction title:

Marit Paasche
Hannah Ryggen. En fri (original title)
(Published by Pax forlag)
About the book

More about Hannah Ryggen here

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

Best children and young adult title:

Tyra Teodora Tronstad
The Darkness Comes From Within (original title: Mørket kommer innenfra)
(Published by Aschehoug)
About the book

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

Literary critic of the year:

Anne Cathrine Straume

Her reviews (in Norwegian) may be found at the NRK – Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation – website

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

Best translation:

Kristin Sørsdal
For the translation from the Italian of Historia om det tapte barnet by Elena Ferrante (published by Samlaget).

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

About the prizes

The Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature (Den norske Kritikerprisen for litteratur or Kritikerprisen) is awarded by the Norwegian Literature Critics’ Association (Norsk Litteraturkritikerlag) and has been awarded every year since 1950. The prize is presented to a Norwegian author for a literary work as agreed to among the members of the Norwegian Literature Critics’ Association. Since 1978 the Norwegian Literature Critics’ Association has also awarded a prize for the best work of children’s literature. In 2003 the Critics Prize for the year’s best work of translation was established, and in 2012 the Critics Prize for the year’s best work of nonfiction for adults was established. 

Read more about the Norwegian literary critics’ prizes and previous winners

Updated info (in Norwegian only) here

The increasing salience of Norwegian literature internationally of recent years continues and the focus on Norway at the Book Fair in Frankfurt 2019 provides the opportunity to further this success. NORLA will carry out this huge undertaking for Norway and collaborate with authors, publishers, agents, translators and culture institutions in Germany and Norway on the creation of an attractive and innovative culture programme that will involve all art disciplines and present an abundance of contemporary literature in all genres.

Halldór Gudmundsson assumed the position of project manager for the Norwegian Guest of Honour project on 01 March. Senior Advisor at NORLA, Andrine Pollen, will join the project team as literature coordinator. Joining them is Marit Ingvill Sande, who will function as coordinator for the culture programme in the coming year. The Norwegian project team will be supplemented by a PR executive and a coordinator who will succeed Marit Ingvill Sande starting in 2018. These positions will be announced at a later date. The project team for Frankfurt 2019 is a part of NORLA, and the project manager will report to NORLA’s director.