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Norway will be Guest of Honour at the world’s largest children’s and young adult book fair, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, in 2026.

Norwegian literature for children and young adults is rich in both expression and genre, and explores a wide range of themes that engage readers of all ages.

The Guest of Honour programme offers a unique opportunity to showcase this diversity and bring stories from Norway to the world. The fair is an international meeting place for the children’s book industry, with a strong focus on illustration art. Each year it welcomes around 30,000 visitors and 1,500 exhibitors from 90 countries.

We look forward to presenting the full breadth of Norwegian literature for children and young people in Bologna.

More about the Norwegian Guest of Honour project here

The government is investing in Norwegian children’s literature and is making a major contribution to Norway’s Guest of Honour appearance in Italy this coming spring.
This significant contribution ensures broad and varied participation from Norwegian authors and illustrators, and will strengthen the Norwegian fair programme currently being developed.

NORLA’s talent program, New Voices for Children and Young Adults, is aimed at Norwegian authors writing fiction and non-fiction for young readers, and its goal is to provide emerging authors with international experience through travel, networking, and a deeper understanding of the outward-facing aspects of being a writer. Nine authors and illustrators participate in the program, which runs from May 2025 until the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in April 2026.

Norway was Guest of Honour at the Book Fair in Warsaw on 26 – 29 May 2022. The book fair took place at the Palace of Culture and is the most important book fair in Poland. According to estimates, the Fair was visited by approximately 90,000 people, a new record.

The Nordic Council of Ministers’ programme for art and culture will continue its funding scheme for the translation of literature and drama from one Nordic language to another.

Please use our online application form.

2024 was another successful and eventful year for Norwegian literature abroad. The German translator Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel was named the first recipient of the new Fosse Prize. At the book fair in Cairo, Norway, as Guest of Honour, was able to build a literary bridge to the Arab world. Preparations for the upcoming Guest of Honour appearances at the book fairs in Leipzig 2025 and Bologna 2026 also moved into detailed planning.

Each year, NORLA awards grants to support the translation of a wide range of Norwegian books into other languages. In 2024, a total of 529 grants were awarded for translations into 47 languages. NORLA received 546 applications in total, covering 445 works of fiction and 101 nonfiction titles. Of the 529 grants awarded, nearly a third were books for children and young adults ​— in total 147 publications.​​

The board of NORLA is appointed by the book industry organisations, the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

NORLA launched its largest international initiative outside of Europe when Norway was the Guest of Honour at the Cairo International Book Fair in 2024, one of the world’s largest public book fairs, attracting nearly 5 million visitors.

From March 27 to 30, 2025, Norway was the Guest of Honour at Leipziger Buchmesse, the largest public book fair in Germany.
During the fair, around 50 Norwegian authors took the stage at Leipziger Messe and throughout the city of Leipzig, offering a diverse program with over 80 events. The program included literature for both adults and children, spanning all genres.

Here we have gathered information and key figures about the Norwegian literature industry.

In April 2026, Norway will be the Guest of Honour at the Bologna Book Fair. Established in 1960, this fair is the world’s largest and most important meeting place for the international children’s book industry.

Illustration plays a central role in the fair, and a key element of Norway’s Guest of Honour program will be an exhibition showcasing illustration art from Norwegian books for children and young adults. The exhibition space, approximately 300 m², will be centrally located at the fairground. It will accentuate the high quality of illustrations in Norwegian children’s literature and showcase the diversity of artistic expressions.

This week, the Norwegian Literature Festival kicks off in Lillehammer and true to tradition, the festival is also the perfect backdrop for the awarding of literary prizes: The Dobloug Prize, The Booksellers Association’s awards and scholarships, The Norwegian Youth Literature Award (“Uprisen”), and also The Norwegian Fiction Translator Fund Award.

At NORLA, we offer our warmest congratulations to all the winners!

We are happy to offer readable insightful interviews with the authors and illustrators of our 25 Selected Titles of the spring.
We invite you to get better aquainted with the books and the people who wrote and illustrated them!

Our translator of the month for April is Yu-jin Lee, who translates into Korean from Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. The Nordic fairy tales he read as a child have shaped who he is today. He studied Nordic languages at a university in Seoul, South Korea, then completed a master’s degree in literature at Stockholm University in Sweden. In 2025, he earned a PhD in Comparative Literature at Yonsei University in Seoul. Since 2007, he has translated approximately 80 books into Korean, by Nordic authors such as Hege Siri, Karl Ove Knausgård, Stian Hole, Astrid Lindgren, Tove Jansson, Stig Dagerman and Leif G. W. Persson. The inspiration for his work comes from his beloved cat, Blåhval (Blue Whale).

We at NORLA are proud and delighted to present our selected titles for the spring:

25 wonderful books which are divided into fiction and non-fiction, for both adults, children and young adults.
See all the Selected Titles here