Named after the winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize for Literature, the Jon Fosse Prize for Translators must “salute a person for their considerable investment in translating Norwegian literature into other languages», Details the country’s National Library, located in Oslo and Mo i Rana.
The Norwegian government provides the necessary funds for the award, which is particularly high, with 500,000 Norwegian crowns for the winner, or a little more than €40,000.
Let us remember that France also has its reward intended for a translator, the Grand Prix SGDL — Ministry of Culture for the work of translation, created in 2019 and endowed to the tune of €15,000. In 2024, he praised the work of Terje Sinding, literary translator from Danish, Norwegian and Swedish into French, based in France since 1969.
With its impressive endowment, the Jon Fosse Prize ranks directly behind the Martinus Nijhoff Prize for translation, endowed with €50,000 and awarded by the Cultuurfonds, a foundation created by Bernhard de Lippe-Biesterfeld, prince consort of the Netherlands between 1948 and 1980.
A price and a course
The Jon Fosse Prize for Translators will recognize writers of all nationalities, but who translate specifically from Norwegian into other languages.
READ – “Translation is an art, an intangible heritage“
No need to have translated the work of Jon Fosse, even if that is the case of the first winner, the German Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel, born in 1959 and based in Berlin. Since 1987, he has translated works into German, from Norwegian, Danish, French and Italian. Besides Fosse, he translated many Norwegian authors, including Kjell Askildsen, Henrik Ibsen, Cecilie Løveid, Tarjei Vesaas and Ruth Lillegraven.
Alongside the literary prize, the National Library of Norway is organizing a “Fosse Course”, which must “open new perspectives on literature, in order to stimulate debate on this subject in Norway and around the world“. The first course will be given by the French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion, member of the Académie française.
Find the list of French and French-speaking literary prizes
Photography: (illustration, Nicolò Bonazzi, CC BY-ND 2.0)
By Antoine Oury
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