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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.

NORLA congratulates Dag Johan Haugerud on his receiving the 2016 P2-listeners’ Novel Prize for the novel Easy Atonal Pieces for Children (Enkle atonale stykker for barn).

The P2-listeners’ Novel Prize is awarded every year by the Norwegian radio channel NRK P2. The nominated books are chosen by a professional jury, which then narrow the nominations down to a shortlist of six books. From there on in a listener’s jury consisting of six people will discuss the books in a series of radio shows, before announcing the winner.

Read more about Easy Atonal Pieces for Children here.

See previous prize winners here (in Norwegian only).

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 D​ö​rries, 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​”​).​​

During 2016 NORLA received a record-breaking 438 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!

Of the 438 books, 349 were fiction titles and 89 non-fiction titles. And there were 127 books for children/young adults.

See all Norwegian books published abroad in 2016 through funding in the list below.

On September 27th, during the celebration of the Patron Saint of Translators, St. Jerome, NORLA announced the recipient of its Translator’s Award 2012.

On the 25th of September, as part of the celebrations in Oslo marking the feast day of St Jerome, the patron saint of translators, NORLA announced the ninth winner of its Translator’s Award. This award was established in 2007 to draw attention to the efforts of translators in disseminating Norwegian literature abroad. The prize is awarded to an emerging talent in translation and is intended to act as an incentive for further contributions to the promotion of Norwegian literature.

The annual prize is awarded alternately to translators of non-fiction literature and translators of fiction. This year’s prize is awarded for non-fiction.

The winner of the 2014 NORLA Translator’s Award is Diane Oatley, who translates into English. Oatley was born and raised in the USA but has been resident in Norway since 1982

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.

A Norwegian sports and cultural delegation led by Norway’s Minister of Culture, Linda Hofstad Helleland, visited China from 25 to 27 May. The delegation also included the author Jostein Gaarder and NORLA’s director, Margit Walsø.
Jostein Gaarder’s books are very well known to Chinese readers as a total of 16 have already been published in Chinese!
A central part of the delegation’s cultural programme was to renew and strengthen cultural collaboration with China.

On 25 May, ZHANG Fusheng, previously editor of Nordic literature at the People’s Literature Publishing House, was awarded the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit by the Minister of Culture, Linda Hofstad Helleland.

NORLA, Norwegian literature abroad, provides funding for the translation of Norwegian titles to be published abroad. The total amount of translation subsidies awarded in 2016 has once again beaten all previous records and among other developments, we can see a clear expansion within the English language market.
NORLA received last year all of 518 applications for translation subsidies, the largest number of applications in our history. Out of these applications, NORLA​’​s committees of experts awarded subsidies for 499 publications of Norwegian books in translation into 46 different languages.​​

NORLA​’​s Director Margit Wals​ø comments on the figures as follows:
«​Norwegian authors are more attractive in the world market than ever before and are reaching readers in every part of the world. We now have a unique opportunity to capitalize on the Frankfurt Book Fair​’​s global scope of impact, in that Norway has been named Guest of Honour for 2019. NORLA is looking forward to the collaboration with translators, the culture sector and the book trade at home and abroad.​»​​

This spring, NORLA’s staff look forward to attending several book fairs, events and literary festivals around the world. See detailed list below.
Feel free to contact us to schedule a meeting!

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.

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.

NORLA offers its warmest congratulations to the eight Norwegian candidates for the 2015 Astrid Lindgren Memorial award, the world’s largest international children’s and young adult literature award.
The candidates were announced during the Frankfurt Book Fair. 197 candidates from 16 countries were nominated. Among these are eight Norwegian authors/illustrators:

Author Tor Åge Bringsværd
Author Gro Dahle and illustrator Svein Nyhus
Author Harald Rosenløw Eeg
Author Marit Kaldhol
Illustrator Gry Moursund
Author and illustrator Lisa Aisato N’jie Solberg
Illustrator Øyvind Torseter

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.

NORLA congratulates the authors Alexander Løken, A. Audhild Solberg, Lars Joachim Grimstad, Tone Almhjell and Arne Svingen on being nominated for The 2014 ARK Children’s Book Award.
The Ark Children’s Book Award is a literary award for the best children’s book of the year. The award was established by the book seller’s chain ARK in 2002. The winner is chosen among five nominated books, which are read and voted for by 10 000 school children. This year’s winner will be announced in December, and the prize is 25,000 NOK and a lithography.

The five nominees are:

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.

NORLA congratulates the winners of the 2013 Norwegian Literary Critics’ Prizes for Literature:

The winners are:

Best fiction title:

Vigdis Hjorth
Wills and Testaments (original title: Arv og miljø)
(Published by Cappelen Damm)
About the book and read the statement from the jury

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

Best non-fiction title:

Marit Paasche
Hannah Ryggen. En fri (original title)
(Published by Pax forlag)
About the book

More about Hannah Ryggen here

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

Best children and young adult title:

Tyra Teodora Tronstad
The Darkness Comes From Within (original title: Mørket kommer innenfra)
(Published by Aschehoug)
About the book

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

Literary critic of the year:

Anne Cathrine Straume

Her reviews (in Norwegian) may be found at the NRK – Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation – website

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

Best translation:

Kristin Sørsdal
For the translation from the Italian of Historia om det tapte barnet by Elena Ferrante (published by Samlaget).

Read the Norwegian speech from the prize ceremony here

About the prizes

The Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature (Den norske Kritikerprisen for litteratur or Kritikerprisen) is awarded by the Norwegian Literature Critics’ Association (Norsk Litteraturkritikerlag) and has been awarded every year since 1950. The prize is presented to a Norwegian author for a literary work as agreed to among the members of the Norwegian Literature Critics’ Association. Since 1978 the Norwegian Literature Critics’ Association has also awarded a prize for the best work of children’s literature. In 2003 the Critics Prize for the year’s best work of translation was established, and in 2012 the Critics Prize for the year’s best work of nonfiction for adults was established. 

Read more about the Norwegian literary critics’ prizes and previous winners

Updated info (in Norwegian only) here