Echoland, Per Petterson’s debut novel, was recently published in Great Brittain by Harvill Secker, to rave reviews. The book is translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world’s largest book fair and this year all the Norwegian participants were gathered at a large joint stand, in a reinforced collaboration between the Norwegian Publishers Association, Norwegian agents, NORLA and Norwegian publishers. The stand was a hub of extensive activity and vibrant energy, and it was of course also decorated with many good, beautiful books in all genres.
All seven of NORLA’s staff members took part in the book fair this year for the very first time! This was also NORLA’s 25th anniversary in Frankfurt, an event that was commemorated by a friendly gesture of appreciation from the book fair in the form of a delicious cake delivered to the stand.

Agnes Ravatn’s The Bird Tribunal was recently published in English by Orenda Books, translated by Rosie Hedger. The book is the first translated novel to be part of the «Fresh Talent»-program of booksellers WHSmith, and it is now receiving great reviews from The Big Issue and Crime Fiction Lover.

On September 29th in Oslo, during the celebration of St. Jerome, the patron saint of translators, the 11th recipient of NORLA’s Translator’s Award was announced. The award was established in 2007 to spotlight the work done for Norwegian literature by foreign language translators. The award is to be given to a talented translator and is intended as a measure to encourage the promotion of Norwegian literature.

The award is given annually and on an alternating basis to translators of non-fiction and fiction. This year’s award is for non-fiction and the award recipient is Nargis Shinkarenko, who translates into Russian.

The planning of Norway Guest of Honour Frankfurt 2019 is well under way.

Read more about Norway as Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019 here.

We invite you to take a closer look at our selected titles for the autumn of 2016 here.

You may also find selected titles from previous years, so called “Backlists”, in different genres here.

We have begun the exciting autumn book fair season and the first fair on the list was the Beijing International Book Fair which took place in the end of August. This is the seventh time in a row NORLA has been to Beijing and we can hereby confirm that Norwegian literature is becoming increasingly popular in China.
If you happen to read Norwegian, you may read the report on the atmosphere of the fair by NORLA’s bookworm emissary here.

See our selected titles from the book fair in Beijing with presentations in both Chinese and English here.

You may also see the covers of Norwegian books recently published in Chinese through NORLA’s translation subsidies here.

NORLA travels around the world to promote Norwegian literature
Please have look at some of our other travelogues here.

Today, NORLA had the pleasure of welcoming four new translators to Oslo for the fifth season of our translators hotel at Hotell Bondeheimen:

Katerina Kristufkova (Czech)
Riina Hanso (Estonian)
Eleonora Pankratova (Russian)
Miroslav Zumrik (Slovakian).

We look forward to spending the next two weeks in their company!

The translators are at present translating among others the following books: Erlend Loe’s novel Volvo lastvagnar, Marit Reiersgård’s crime fiction novel Tall Snow, Tore Rem’s award-winning Knut Hamsun. The Journey to Hitler and Merethe Lindstrøm’s From the Winter Archives.

They look forward to meeting authors they are translating, or will be translating, and to better get to know Norwegian publishers and agents. They will also take part in several literary events and book launches during their stay, as well as visits to bookshops. In addition to this, the Norwegian Children’s Book Festival in Oslo (Barnebokfestivalen, September 15-17), and Oslo Culture Night (Oslo kulturnatt, September 16) will offer great opportunities for dives into Norwegian literature, culture and history.

All four will also be having work stations in our office, so we look forward to seeing them almost daily.

(From the left: NORLA’s Torill Johansen (who administers the translators hotel scheme), Katerina Kristufkova, Riina Hanso, Eleonora Pankratova and
Miroslav Zumrik.
Photo: Mette Børja).

NORLA offers its warmest congratulations to Per Petterson, who this week received the prestigious Aschehoug Prize.
Per Petterson is one of Norway’s most critically acclaimed contemporary authors. His books have found readers all over the world as they are translated into no less than 50 languages.

NORLA will be taking part in many book fairs, seminars and meetings in the coming months.

See where you can find us and when in the course of the autumn here.

Please feel free to contact us to schedule a meeting.

The translators of the month for August and September are the British-Norwegian translation duo Deborah Dawkin and Erik Skuggevik. They are currently making headlines with new translations of four of Henrik Ibsen’s best known dramas, which have just been published by Penguin Classics.
Together they have also translated a broad spectrum of Norwegian titles, from fiction and non-fiction to graphic novels.

If you read Norwegian you can become better acquainted with Deborah and Erik here.