2024 marks the 80th anniversary of Iceland becoming an independent republic. The Nordic Literature Week on 11-17 November wants to celebrate this historic milestone, and are therefore focusing on Iceland and its rich literary heritage this year. Through reading texts by Icelandic authors, we will explore the country’s multifaceted stories, and honor its cultural contributions to the Nordic community.
Freedom in the Nordics
This year’s theme, Freedom in the Nordics, allows us to reflect on what freedom means for people in the Nordic countries, and how it is embodied and explored in literature.
Freedom is a concept that can have many expressions: from personal freedom to express oneself and live as one wishes, to nations’ pursuit of independence and sovereignty.
By linking Iceland’s 80th anniversary with the theme Freedom in the Nordics, we hope to make the Nordic Literature Week a platform to discuss and explore thoughts on freedom and community. We aim to inspire conversations about what freedom means to each of us, and how we can work together to strengthen freedom and community in our societies – now and in the future.
Morning dawn reading for children
The picture book Volcano by Rán Flygenring was awarded the Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize in 2023. From the jury’s motivation:
„This year’s winner has created an explosively visual picture book about how wild and uncontrollable nature affects humans. They skilfully weave image and text into a playfully humorous story about a motley crowd of tourists that encounters a volcanic eruption.
Does nature exist only to entertain us, or should we ourselves take greater responsibility for how we interact with it? „Eldgos” gives hope that we can find a way to live in harmony with nature.”
Evening dusk reading
As Iceland is celebrating 80 years as a republic, we are reading “The Blue Fox” (Skugga-Baldur) by Sjón. Skugga-Baldur is about a priest and a fox hunt, but it is also a reckoning with Icelandic history. „Skuggabaldur” is the name of a fox-cat in Icelandic folklore, and in the novel, we follow Baldur Skuggason in pursuit of a talking fox. The concise language evokes the Icelandic sagas, and the vivid nature descriptions take us through the Icelandic landscape, which plays a significant role in the story.
The book has been awarded the Nordic Council Literature Prize. The motivation read: „The Blue Fox balances skilfully on the border between poetry and prose. The novel weaves themes from Icelandic sagas, and romantic narrative art into a fascinating story in which present day ethical questions stand out.”
Record turnout of Lithuanians
This marks the 24th time Lithuania has hosted the reading event, and once again, Lithuanians have shown remarkable enthusiasm with a record turnout. A total of 1,886 participants from Åland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, and Estonia have registered for the week. Impressively, one-third of these participants, 626, are libraries, schools, and kindergartens from Lithuania.
