When we are surrounded by the twilight of November, we light candles and read together. This is the idea of ​​the Nordic Literature Week, which has been running for three decades.

More than 200,000 people gather for the Nordic Literature Week audio readings every year. More than 2,000 schools, libraries and other cultural and educational organizations throughout the Nordic and Baltic region organize readings of books by Nordic authors at the same time on the agreed day. Every year, more and more participants come from Lithuania – from the youngest listeners in kindergartens to senior readers’ clubs in public libraries. Three books are traditionally offered for reading – for children, teenagers / youth and adults (see below).

The theme of this year’s Nordic Literature Week is the Nordic countries and the world.

Nordic Literature Week invites everyone – children, young people and adults – to think about what it means to be a global citizen and to find their place in the world. The people of the Nordic countries have long been experienced travellers and explorers of new lands. We find traces of the people of the Nordic countries in many parts of the world, starting with historical finds dating back to ancient Viking times and later cultural traces.

There are eight billion of us on the planet. We all create our world together. We can travel freely around the world, leave our homes, our surroundings to unfamiliar and foreign lands. Trips come short and long, short and never ending. The world may seem unfathomable to us, but it can also be quite small. But one thing we know for sure – all those eight billion people live and create each their own unique world, we all continue our own unique story.

This year’s literature

This year’s reading books sparkle with life and ask big questions about life and death, privileges, rights, and responsibilities in the world. The books describe human characteristics that both unite us and, at the same time, separate us from each other and making us individuals. All the chosen read-aloud books this year have won a Nordic Council Literature Prize. We hope that the books will generate engagement amongst their audience and inspire organizers to carry out further activities in connection to the read-aloud events.

The reading session for children and young people, Morning dawn, is held at 9am. For the adults, the reading session, Evening dusk, is arranged in the evening at 7pm. The time can of course be adjusted as needed.

Before the Nordic Literature Week starts, the extracts chosen for the read aloud from the three books will be made available on the website for registered institutions in all the Nordic languages and English. The extracts are made for an estimated reading session of 30 minutes.

Click on the book covers to read more about this year’s books.

THE READ ALOUD BOOKS FOR 2020: 

Morning dawn	Morning dawn	Evening dusk