NORLA recently visited the Non/Fiction Book Fair in Moscow, an important fair we are happy to attend every year. Russian publishers were, as in previous years, very interested in Norwegian books and this year several non-fiction titles were sold to Russia ahead of the book fair; Morten Strøksnes: Havboka, Lars Fr. H. Svendsen: Ensomhetens filosofi,
Tore Rem: Hamsun. Reisen til Hitler, Erika Fatland: Sovjetistan and Bår Stenvik: Bløff.

At the fair the books from Norway in demand were particularly children’s books and non-fiction, especially history and viking-related books.

NORLA took part along with the NordLit network from the Nordic countries in this year’s Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair in China, 13-15 November 2015, for the very first time. The book fair proved very successful as the interest for Norwegian books was massive – with a wonderful buzz around the launch of Håkon Øvreås and Øyvind Torseter’s award-winning book “Brune”.

NORLA offers its warmest congratulations to Maja Lunde, winner of the 2015 Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize for her novel The History of Bees (original title: Bienes historie, published by Aschehoug).

Hagen Agency celebrates its 10th anniversary and NORLA offers its warmest congratulations to agent Eirin Hagen.

2015 will be an historical year for the dissemination of Norwegian literature in China and Taiwan. All of 18 Norwegian books will be published in Chinese this year. And 11 of these are books for children/young people.

“Increasingly more Norwegian titles are being published in China and Taiwan and this is an exciting development. We have great ambitions for increased export,” says NORLA’s Director Margit Walsø.

Maria Parr’s celebrated novel Waffle Hearts is on the shortlist for the Italian literary award Premio Strega ragazze e ragazzi (for readers 6+). The award is one of Italy’s most popular literary awards and the award ceremony will be held during the Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2016.
The Italian edition of the book has already received several other awards; Il Premio Andersen and Super Premio – Libro dell’anno 2015.

Norway’s Minister of Culture Thorhild Widvey visited this year’s book fair in Frankfurt and had the opportunity to experience the level of activity at the world’s most important international literary arena. She met the book fair’s management, representatives from different guest nations and not least Norwegian publishers and agents. Widvey expressed how impressed she was with how we present Norwegian literature and especially appreciated seeing that so much good work is being done for children’s and young people’s literature.

For over a year NORLA has worked towards enabling Norway to apply for Guest of Honour status at the book fair in 2019. The government views this endeavour as a means of expanding the export of Norwegian culture and will ask the Norwegian Storting to pledge up to NOK 25 million. This still falls short on the part of the government of the amount of NOK 33 million applied for by NORLA. The total budget is NOK 55 million.

Next year 215 candidates from 59 countries will be in the running for the ALMA Award, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. The ALMA Award is the world’s largest international children’s and young adult literature award. The award amounts to SEK 5 million and is given annually to a single laureate or to several. Authors, illustrators, oral storytellers and reading promoters are eligible for the award, which is designed to promote interest in children’s and young adult literature.