Søk etter “2019”

Would you like to work with literature and be part of Norway’s largest cultural export project ever? Are you well organized and fond of writing?

As an intern at NORLA you will get a foot in the door in the Norwegian literary sphere and useful experience in project management as well as communication and PR. The position is suitable for a student or graduate who is fluent in German and English and is looking to obtain experience.
Working hours are flexible within 3 days a week for a limited period of time during autumn 2018. The place of work is Oslo.

We look forward to the many activities coming up this autumn!
First, the book fair in Beijing was held last week, where NORLA participated for the ninth consecutive year.
We also attended the Haugesund Film Festival, where we participated in the seminar Books from Haugesund for the second year in a row.
This week the fourth batch of writers began our author program New Voices. The five participants will attend events all around Europe throughout autumn – some will also visit Japan.

In 2019, Norway will be the Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. As Guest of Honour, Norway will have a 2300 m2 indoor pavilion. In January, NORLA, in collaboration with The Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture (DOGA) and The Norwegian Architectural Association (NAL), announced an open plan and design contest for the design of the pavilion. 66 applications were approved for further judgment. The results of the competition have now been released.

From May 28th – June 3rd, the Nordic region’s largest literary festival took place in Lillehammer. During the festival, NORLA arranged a seminar for translators who work with translating fiction from Norwegian into English, French, Dutch and Polish. NORLA also invited several international publishers and scouts to Oslo and Lillehammer (in cooperation with the Publishers’ Association and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Participants came from Great Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
A group of German journalists and influencers also visited Norway in connection with the festival.

The Guest of Honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse 2019 presented its extensive cultural programme, the concept for the Guest of Honour Pavilion and the list of authors who will attend the fair. Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess Mette-Marit will travel across Germany on a literary train tour in collaboration with Deutsche Bahn AG. Erika Fatland and Karl Ove Knausgård will speak at the fair’s opening ceremony.

For everybody working at NORLA, sparking the joy of reading is a true privilege. And today we are happy to celebrate World Book Day by recommending books from our selected spring titles.

On 12 May at 2 PM, in the lobby of the National Theatre in Oslo, NORLA’s Director Margit Walsø and Frankfurter Buchmesse’s Director Juergen Boos signed the agreement confirming Norway as Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2019.

Seven Norwegian businesses have been chosen to participate in the export program “Literature Go Global”.

There was joy and enthusiasm all around in the National Theatre in Oslo on 12 May 2016, as the agreement between the Frankfurter Buchmesse and NORLA, Norwegian Literature Abroad, was signed and officially confirming Norway as Guest of Honour at the book fair in 2019.
NORLA’s director Margit Walsø welcomed an enthusiastic audience and revealed that NORLA has been working towards the realization of the Guest of Honour project for about three years.
The Norwegian Minister of Culture, Linda Hofstad Helleland, held an enthusiastic speech welcoming this unique opportunity for Norwegian literature and culture to make an even bigger impression abroad. She also encouraged more privat sponsors to seize the opportunity to come aboard, to make the most of the project’s fantastic possibilities of Norwegian branding abroad.

The most important news item of the spring for Norwegian cultural life was that Norway was named Guest of Honour for the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2019. In the speech given by the Minister of Culture in conjunction with the signing of the agreement, she emphasized that Norway has hereby acquired a unique position for the internationalization of Norwegian literature and culture through the book fair’s strong position in the important German market and worldwide. The Guest of Honour project provides great opportunities for Norwegian authors and for increasing the export of literature in the coming years. The book trade’s combined investment will be crucial and Norwegian Book Day in June clearly demonstrated that the industry is prepared to make the most of this opportunity. Activities commence now. NORLA’s talent development programme for new literary voices within all genres will start up in the autumn, in collaboration with Talent Norway and the Norwegian Publishers Association.

According to German sales figures six books from Norway made it to the bestseller lists for 2019, the year Norway was Guest of Honour at the world’s most important book fair; Frankfurter Buchmesse:

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

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

Internationally, literature from Norway is in an incredibly strong position. 2019 was the year that Norway featured as Guest of Honour at the world’s most important book fair – Frankfurter Buchmesse – with the motto The Dream We Carry. NORLA planned and implemented this initiative on behalf of the government and the book industry.

Thanks to the Guest of Honour initiative, the number of books that were published in German reached a record high in 2019: 510 titles from or about Norway. One hundred authors from Norway came to the 2019 Frankfurt Book Fair, with 100,000 people visiting the pavilion. Almost two hundred authors participated in a program in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland in 2019, and a total of 1120 literary or cultural events were held in German-speaking regions. Norway set a record for media attention as guest country, being mentioned 14,997 times throughout the autumn of 2019.

“Thanks to all the publications in German during its year as Guest of Honour, Norwegian literature has a bigger window on other languages too. With targeted efforts in the future towards other markets, we will be able to see the long-term ripple effects of the work behind the guest-country initiative,” says Margit Walsø, director of NORLA.

POSTPONED: Due to the latest developments concerning the coronavirus and new guidelines from the Institute of Public Health, the conference marking the end of the Literature Go Global program is postponed.
This is seen as a necessary measure to limit the risk of spreading the corona virus. At the same time we are doing our best to set an alternative date for the conference.

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.

February 1 is the application deadline for translators of Norwegian literature regarding stays at NORLA’s Translators hotel spring 2019 (weeks 19-20, i.e. as of Monday May 6th through Sunday May 19th).
Please note that the offer is only available for translators who translate directly from Norwegian.

The application deadline is 1 March.
Read more here (in Norwegian only).

During the presentation of the culture report “The Power of Culture,” Trine Skei Grande asserted that cultural policy is freedom of expression’s policy. We at NORLA could not agree more.

February’s Translator of the Month is Anne Bruce from Scotland. She has been put forward by – and has received a question from – her Mexican translator colleague Juan Gutiérrez-Maupomé. Now the translators featured in NORLA’s series are passing the baton from one to the other.

Anne translates fiction and has admirable experience with crime novels. In 2019 her translation of Jørn Lier Horst’s The Katharine Code was awarded the coveted British prize The Petrona Award for best translated Scandinavian crime novel published in 2019.

Learn more about Anne and the books she has translated here.

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

The first group of participants chosen for NORLA’s development programme for new literary talents – “New Voices” – has been decided. The four names are:
Simen Ekern, Sigbjørn Mostue, Roskva Koritzinsky and Nils Henrik Smith.