Authors Arild Vange and Torild Wardenær have been awarded prestigious fellowships at the International House of Artists Villa Concordia, Germany. They have been invited to spend eleven months in Bamberg working as authors, along with visual artists and composers from Germany and Norway. This year’s artists have free use of working space and accommodations at the Villa Concordia from mid-April 2015 through mid-March 2016. In addition, they receive monthly allowances of 1500 Euros. The fellows participate in events presented by the International House of Artists, and their work contributes to the enrichment of cultural life in Bamberg and throughout the region.

We’re very pleased to welcome to Oslo the first three guests at NORLA’s publishers hotel (hotel Bondeheimen):
Ronny Augustinus (from the publishing house Marjin Kiri in Indonesia), Irina Gusinskaya (from OOO “Alpina Publisher” in Russia) and Dejan Anicic (from Karpos Books in Serbia).

The acclaimed Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet and the Norwegian Festival of Literature has made a decision on who´s the best authors under the age of 35.
The first ‘top 10 under 35’-list was made in 2004, and the chosen authors make up a selection of voices that are still important today.
This time the jury is comprised by associate professor Tonje Vold, authors Jan Kjærstad and Inger Bråtveit, poet and literary critic Espen Stueland and literary critic Bernhard Ellefsen.
The jury states that the list reflects a vital and varied literary culture.
See the list and read the jury’s statement below.

NORLA and the Norwegian Embassy in Turkey recently arranged, for the first time, a seminar for translators and publishers in Istanbul!
Read the report by NORLA’s Senior Adviser, Oliver Møystad, below.

Yet again Per Petterson is hailed by American literary critics – this time for his acknowledged novel I Refuse.

Author Karl Ove Knausgård is currently touring the US on occation of the launch of volume four of his My Struggle-series. My Struggle: Book Four has so far received excellent reviews and extensive media coverage.
There is great interest for the author in the US: Yesterday more than 1200 people came to Nourse Theathre in San Fransisco to hear Knausgård in a discussion with author and literary critic Daniel Handler.

The book is translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett, and is published in the US by Archipelago Books.
Knausgård’s tour is supported through NORLA’s travel grant, and our Senior Adviser for Non-Fiction, Andrine Pollen, is attending parts of the programme.

Translators play the most important part in spreading Norwegian literature out into the world. Their work is of crucial importance and in order to shed some light on their work, NORLA has started the interview series “Translator of the month”, where we can get better acquainted with translators of Norwegian and their hard work that makes Norwegian literature available in all the world’s languages.

Åsne Seierstad’s book on the terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utøya in 2011 receives rave review in the New York Times.

At NORLA we are pleased about the positive reception for our new offer for non-fiction publishers from abroad, specifically, the opportunity to apply for a stay of five days in Oslo at the Hotel Bondeheimen, which is also NORLA’s translators hotel.

Norwegian literature abroad is doing extremely well, and NORLA is experiencing a large interest in Norwegian literature, judging from the number of applications for translation subsidies from foreign publishers.

During 2014 NORLA received a record-breaking 386 Norwegian books that have been published in a total of 47 languages made possible by translation subsidies from NORLA and the Nordic Council of Ministers. This surpasses even last year’s all-time high of 365 books.