It’s time to introduce yet another of our member associations: the Norwegian Association of Literary Translators, or in proper Norwegian, Norsk Oversetterforening!

‘Norsk Oversetterforening (NO) is the sole Norwegian association for translators of fiction literature,’ Chair Hilde Lyng and Vice-Chair Jan Chr. Næss tell us. Established in 1948, NO has approximately 350 members.

‘NO performs a wide variety of different tasks: from organising social events and seminars for members and non-members to negotiating contracts with the publishers’ association and lobbying politicians and other decision-makers to protect and promote reading, Norwegian language and the interests of our professional community,’ say Hilde and Jan. NO also runs its own translators’ encyclopaedia, NOleks, which employs a part time editor.

The main topics the board has concentrated on lately are the threats posed by LLMs, pension rights for freelancers and strengthening the Arts Council’s purchasing scheme for translated literature. Hilde and Jan: ‘In addition to the PLR, one of the main instruments of Norwegian literature policy is the purchasing schemes, where the state, represented by Arts Council Norway, purchases a certain number of copies of select titles every year, which are then distributed to Norwegian libraries. The scheme supports publishers as well as authors, who get a substantial bonus.’

Translated literature has been included in the purchasing schemes since 1990, but only about a hundred translated titles are included. ‘NO has recently succeeded in persuading the Arts Council to include translated literature in a new purchasing scheme specifically for school libraries. The next goal on our agenda is to lobby for an increase in the number of translated titles included in the purchasing scheme, in collaboration with NFFO (which organises non-fiction translators),’ Hilde and Jan tell us.

Will NO and NFFO achieve that goal? Watch this space!