Translator of the Month for March is Reiko Hidani who translates into Japanese. She’s in the news because her translation of Steffen Kverneland’s Munch has been nominated for Japan’s The Best Translation Award. She has also translated the recently published book What is Economy?, aimed at children and young people and written by Gunhild J. Ecklund.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Since the autumn of 2014 NORLA has worked intensively to lay the foundation to enable Norway to apply for Guest of Honour status at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2019. We are pleased that this initiative was met with overwhelming support from the Storting, says Margit Walsø, director of NORLA.
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.
2015 has been a fantastic year for Norwegian literature abroad and an exciting year for NORLA. We have worked intensively to lay the foundation to enable Norway to apply for Guest of Honour status at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2019. We are pleased that this initiative has met with overwhelming support from the Storting. When the broad engagement on the part of the book industry now receives the whole-hearted support of the Government and the Storting, we have a fantastic starting point for a Norwegian application for Guest of Honour status. The Storting’s decision to back the application with NOK 30 million creates an exceptional opportunity to make a large investment in the export of Norwegian literature and culture, and we thank everyone who has contributed to our having come this far in the application process.
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”.
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.
During 2015 NORLA received a record-breaking 392 Norwegian books that have been published in a total of 47 languages made possible by translation subsidies from NORLA (and within the Nordic countries: from the Nordic Council of Ministers).
This surpasses even last year’s all-time high.
See all Norwegian books published abroad in 2015 through funding below.
Earlier this week German translator Hinrich Scmidt-Henkel was awarded the Eugen Helmlé Award in Sulzbach in Saarland and NORLA congratulates him warmly!
In 2015 NORLA received all of 451 applications for translation subsidies, the largest number of applications in NORLA’s history. Out of these NORLA awarded subsidies to 431 publications of Norwegian books for translation into 46 different languages. This is the same number of allocations as in the record year of 2012.
It is particularly impressive that a total of 114 of NORLA’s awarded translation subsidies went to books for children and young people, an auspicious increase from last year’s record of 100 subsidies granted.
As of 31 August 2015, NORLA has received 251 Norwegian books that have been published in a total of 45 languages through NORLA’s (and in the Nordic region: The Nordic Council of Ministers’) translation subsidies.
There’s been quite a lot of activity at NORLA over the last month, with many great meetings both at home and abroad! We would like to share some photos and briefly inform you about the various events that have taken place.