About the festival

Dates for the next festival:
25 to 30 May 2010

Downlowd this year's programme here

The Norwegian Festival of Literature is the largest literature festival in the Nordic countries. Its main focus is Norwegian contemporary literature and the interaction between literature and society. In the past few years it has had an increasingly international profile and from the festival in 2007 a particular focus on literature from the Nordic countries.

The festival takes place every year in Lillehammer at the end of May. The next festival will be celebrating its 15th anniversary.

The festival contains everything from large scale events to intimate small events: meetings with authors and authorships, readings, interviews, debates, lectures, concerts, art exhibitions, seminars, theatre, film and quiz. This is a festival for an extensive reading audience: kindergarten- and school children, families, book club members, teachers, students, musicians, actors, journalists and politicians.

The festival is also Norway's largest meeting point for authors, translators, literary critics, publishers and librarians. 

Our logo:
Author and Nobel Prize Laureate Sigrid Undset's profile is the festival's logo. It is drawn by Kjersti Wexelsen Goksøyr, and she has based it on her own sculpture "Sigrid Undset Strength". The sculpture can be seen in Stensparken in Oslo (granite 212cm, 1991) and in Lillehammer Art Museum (granite 136cm, 1990).

The Norwegian Festival of Literature has two defined main goals:
- to increase general interest in literature
- to be a central arena for literature in Norway

The strategy to reach these goals are:
- network building
- working together with relevant cultural institutions and organizations locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
- preserving and renewing our volunteering traditions

Administration:
Festival director: Randi Skeie
randi.skeie@litteraturfestival.no

Artistic adviser: Endre Ruset
endre.ruset@litteraturfestival.no

Head of programme Pegasus: Widar Aspeli
pegasus@litteraturfestival.no

Production coordinator: Mari K. Bjerke
mari.bjerke@litteraturfestival.no

The history:
The Norwegian Festival of Literature started as a seminar about Sigrid Undset at Nansenskolen in Lillehammer in 1993. After two years the seminar was turned into a foundation and has since developed into the largest non-commercial meeting point in the literary world of the Nordic countries. In 2008 the festival had 20.500 visitors over six days and almost 200 events.

The festival is a non-profit organization and is dependent of the volunteering from our functionaries as well as the involvement of institutions such as Maihaugen, Lillehammer College University, Lillehammer Art Museum, Nansenskolen, The Norwegian Publishers Association, The Norwegian Writers Centre and several smaller organizations such as The Sigrid Undset Society.

Festival themes:
The 1960's 1996
The 70's in Norwegian literature 1997
What about history? 1998
Damned writers 1999
Folly and writers 2000
Power 2001
Myths 2002
Crime and poetry 2003
Europe 2004
Conflict and reconciliation 2005
Staging 2006
Infidelity 2007
The Future 2008
Truth 2009