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. A recent report by Nielsen Book showed that translated literary fiction makes up only 3.5% of the literary fiction titles published in the UK, but accounts for 7% of the volume of sales. Only a tiny fraction of fiction published in English is translated, and only about a quarter of that translated fiction was originally written by women. 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.

See where and when you can meet us here

As of 30 June 2017, NORLA has received 248 Norwegian books that have been published in a total of 41 languages through NORLA’s (and in the Nordic region: The Nordic Council of Ministers’) translation subsidies.

There are 192 fiction publications and 56 non-fiction publications.
And a total of 63 are titles for children and young people.

See the list of the books below.

Translators are the most important emissaries we have for bringing Norwegian literature out into the world. Their work is of decisive significance and to spotlight this work, we started the interview series entitled “Translator of the month”. Here we will get to know some of those who translate from Norwegian and learn about their challenging work of transmitting Norwegian literature into all the different languages of the world.

Read more about Ben here.

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

Morten A. Strøksnes’ award-winning book Shark Drunk (original title: Havboka) has been launched in the US and UK to great acclaim and is receiving starred reviews. The author was recently interviewed in National Geographic, and last week Shark Drunk featured as «Book of the week» in BBC Four.

The book is translated from the Norwegian by Tiina Nunnally. It is published in the US by Penguin Randomhouse and in the UK by Jonathan Cape under its full title; Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark From a Tiny Rubber Dingy in a Big Ocean.

Praise:

We’re back from the holidays, and would like to remind you about tomorrow’s application deadline for the translation of Norwegian fiction.

Last year, NORLA collaborated with Talent Norge and the Norwegian Publishers Association on the New Voices development programme. Recruiting new authors and promoting new literary voices abroad are important aims of the Frankfurt 2019 initiative. New Voices will create a space where parts of Norway’s rich literary undergrowth can be made visible, giving a boost to authors who are on the verge of an international breakthrough. A group of 4-6 new writing voices will take part in the programme every six months.

This past spring has been perhaps the most labour-intensive in NORLA’s history. A great deal has happened – particularly when it comes to Norway’s role as guest of honour at Frankfurt 2019:

The Frankfurt team was set up on 1 March, with a project manager, a coordinator for the literary programme and a coordinator for the cultural programme. And the first thing they focused on was presenting a broad range of Norwegian literature for translation to relevant publishers, and setting in motion potential collaborative projects for the cultural programme.

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 June and July is Maike Dörries, who translates into German. In June she took part in NORLA’s seminar for translators of literature for children and young people in Lillehammer, and is an extremely experienced translator, with more than 200 titles from Swedish, Danish and Norwegian to her name. In the interview she also mentions that she played a role in the creation of Endre Lund Eriksen’s popular novel for young people Den sommeren pappa ble homo (“That Summer my Dad was Gay”).

NORLA set up its New Voices programme to help new Norwegian authors reach the international market. The first round is now complete and the first group consisted of Simen Ekern, Roskva Koritzinsky, Nils Henrik Smith and Sigbjørn Mostue.

Georgia has proud literary traditions. Georgian is one of Europe’s oldest written languages and it is said that the country’s national epic, The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, anticipated the European Renaissance by several centuries.
An international book fair takes place in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi every year. In the last week of May, Norway was the fair’s country in focus featuring the four spring-semester participants on NORLA’s New Voices programme.