Guest of honour 2025: Norway

Literature from Norway in focus at Europe’s biggest reading festival

Norway has been offered the opportunity to be Guest of Honour at Leipzig Book Fair 2025. This is a golden chance for Norwegian literature in its breadth to reach German readers. Together with the fair the literature festival Leipzig Reads will be happening, filling the city with 3000 events in 350 different venues throughout four days. This makes the festival the biggest of its kind in Europe, placing the joy of reading and the audience in the foreground.

The literary programme will be presenting a range of different voices of authors from Norway, both at the fair itself and in Leipzig city. The idea is for the programme to mirror topical themes in our day and age, as well as discussing publishing trends in Norway. The main part of the programme will be based on German demand.

In relation to the Guest of Honour project, NORLA will provide grants for translation by German, Swiss and Austrian publishing houses, to stimulate for more Norwegian titles to come out in the respective countries in the run-up to the book fair in 2025. Publishers, book sellers and media will visit Norway in the preparations of the presentation.

More than a book fair

The unique part of Leipzig Book Fair is that it is as much a literature festival as it is a fair. Leipzig has a long literary tradition, as one of Europe’s biggest book fairs. Authors from Norway have been present at the book fair for many years. We are confident that we in 2025 can create engaging events for a wide audience across Germany, and at the same time reach the fair’s German and international industry players, such as publishers, bookstores, and translators, both at the fair and in the city.

– The German market has for a long time been very important for Norwegian literature abroad. Now, we can intensify this contact and bring forward new voices, all of this at a reading fair that aims to inspire the reader and put the author in the front line, says Director of NORLA, Margit Walsø.

The literature country Norway

Oliver Zille, Director for the Leipzig Book Fair, says:

– Norwegian literature is popular and highly-regarded in the German-speaking market. Norway's stint as host country offers authors the ideal opportunity to introduce new works to a curious audience and to increase enthusiasm for Norwegian literature and culture. Thanks to their broad scope of appeal, the Leipzig Book Fair and reading festival are the perfect venue to increase awareness of Norway and its literary creatives in a sustainable way."

The Guest of Honour project will be organised by NORLA, Norwegian Literature Abroad, who has extensive experience with similar projects, such as through the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2019 and the Warszawa Book Fair 2022. The project has already been granted support by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Now commence the important job of involving the whole book industry both in Norway and Germany, as well as other industry players, organizations, and partners.

For more information, please contact Senior Communications Adviser Mette Børja: mette.borja@norla.no

For pictures of the handover, as well as portraits of Margit Walsø and Oliver Zille, please see attached.