The Sun Script (Päikesekiri, 2021) is an absorbing work of fiction which ranges across many countries and has a large gallery of fascinating characters, focusing in particular on the adventures of Lily, an Estonian strongwoman loosely modelled on the sumo wrestler Anette Busch (1882-1969), and Tsuneo, an amateur Japanese linguist who is the guardian of a secret cosmic language. The novel combines fast-paced events and high tension with more reflective passages about the possibilities of international understanding and the nature of writing.
Anette Busch (1882-1969)
Rein Raud is an outstanding Estonian writer who has won many awards for his fiction and poetry, as well as being himself a translator. The Sun Script has been translated into several languages.
The novel is translated by Christopher Moseley, a highly experienced translator from Estonian and Latvian, whose translations for Norvik Press include Ilmar Taska’s Pobeda 1946 (2018) and Inga Abele’s The Year The River Froze Twice (2020). This translation of The Sun Script is an exciting addition to Norvik Press’s Baltic titles.
These maps were included in Rein Raud’s original novel Päikesekiri (2021), showing where the action takes place
The Bergen in which Amalie Skram was born and grew up was a bustling cosmopolitan port, with trading links to the rest of Europe and beyond, in many ways a more important centre than the capital Christiania over the other side of the country. From a young age she was allowed to roam freely around the town, observing the characters and settings which were to provide inspiration for some of her best writing. The series of novels known as The People of Hellemyr is largely set in and around Bergen, as the fate of the family is followed through several generations, from subsistence farmers to aspiring middle-class citizens.
Amalie Skram (1846-1905)
Although Bergen has of course grown and changed dramatically since the mid-nineteenth century, a large part of the old town which Amalie knew so well has survived to this day. With its narrow alleyways and steep cobbled streets, wooden merchants’ houses and wharves, it makes it easy to imagine Madam Tosspot and Tippler Tom stumbling drunkenly through the byways or Sivert watching the ships tying up and dreaming of running away to sea.
Port of Bergen, late 19th Century (Bergen University Library Collections)
The first chapters of Two Friends bring together the characters of Oline (Madam Tosspot) and her grandson Sivert, whose shame at his grandmother’s drunkenness drives him as far away from the town as he can go – by ship all the way to Jamaica. But nowhere is far enough away to escape the inherited flaws which he will always carry with him.
Here is a short excerpt from the beginning of the novel, following Sivert and his grandmother in the streets of Bergen:
A fifteen-year-old boy in grey trousers held up by braces over his shoulders with a grey woollen shirt underneath came walking up Øvregaden. He was humming a popular song, marking the beats by stamping his wooden clogs on the sharp cobbles; when the melody demanded it he took a few dance steps. On his head sat a cap with a stiff peak shading his eyes, and under his arm he carried a bundle.
When he caught sight of the crowd up by Smedesmugalmindingen, he stretched out his neck with a look of curiosity in his wide-open eyes, and set off running towards it.
At that moment the knot of people began to move. The circle opened up, and he could see Tippler Tom with something in his hand which he was dragging along the street, and with Oline on his arm, lurching towards him. With a jerk the boy came to a sudden halt. His head sank forwards as if his neck had been broken. His fingers groped irresolutely down his trousers, and he turned round slowly. All at once his back hunched and his whole body seemed to shrink. It looked as if he wanted to leave, but couldn’t move. He stared down as if paralysed at one of his clogs which had fallen off his foot. He could hear the crowd approaching. In a moment it would knock him over if he didn’t move. He stole a glance to each side. Just next to him on the left was Bødkersmuget. Suddenly he bent down, snatched up the clog, took a couple of long unsteady strides over the gutter and the narrow pavement and reached the alley, starting to climb up its steep stone steps.
‘Come along wi’ us, Sivert! Tippler Tom an’ Madam Tosspot’s goin’ t’ Påtholleter sell ‘er skirt for booze!’ a boy’s voice called after him.
John Linnell (1792-1882), after Edward Price (active c.1823-1854), View Across the Fiord from Herrinsholmen, circa 1826-27 from series Seven Views in Norway, etching on paper (UCL Art Museum LDUCS-1456).
Celebrate The European Day of Languages on 26 September by learning a Nordic language!
Did you know that 26 September is The European Day of Languages (EDL)? This celebration was first introduced in 2001 during the European Year of Languages when the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers ultimately decided to make EDL a yearly occurrence. The day is an opportunity to promote multilingualism, linguistic diversity and language learning.
At Norvik Press we are obviously big fans of this yearly celebration and of the many activities organised to draw attention to Europe’s linguistic and cultural diversity. So why not mark the day by learning something new about one of the languages of the Nordic Region?
You can do this, for instance, by exploring The Language and Culture Show and Tell series, a set of free online language tasters and related materials created around objects mostly from UCL Art Collections. In January 2023, the series also became the basis of the UCL Art Museum exhibition called ‘Not Just Words: Learning Languages through Art and Objects’, which one of our Directors, Dr Elettra Carbone, co-curated with Dr Andrea Fredericksen (Curator, UCL Art Museum).
The ‘Not Just Words’ exhibition in the Summer of 2024. Photographer: K. Holst.
The series and the exhibition show how a collection-based approach to language learning can successfully and simultaneously promote the importance of language awareness and the relevance of university collections to academic and non-academic audiences. Many modern languages spoken in the Nordic Region are represented in this series, including Danish, Faroese, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish. We hope you enjoy these resources and wish a happy EDL to all our readers and followers!
Selma Lagerlöf’s A Kaleidoscope of Stories (Norvik Press, July 2025)
‘Osceola’ by George Catlin (1838)
Selma Lagerlöf’s vivid recollection of discovering the heady delights of the adventure story Oseola (sometimes known as Osceola) as a child is taken from ‘Two Prophecies’, one of the autobiographical texts in this volume. It seems a fitting way to open this blogpost about the latest addition to our ‘Lagerlöf in English’ series, which turns the spotlight on the power of short stories. The volume contains a carefully chosen selection of Lagerlöf’s most important stories covering a range of themes, genres and periods of her career, translated by our prize-winning trio of Lagerlöf translators, Linda Schenck, Peter Graves and Sarah Death. After each story they also provide explanatory notes where appropriate.
Lucca, Church of St. John and St. Reparata, 4th Century (Syrio)
Key autobiographical pieces, morality tales both dark and light, legends from several lands and folklore-inspired narratives combine to reveal the breadth and stylistic range of Lagerlöf’s storytelling skills. This is a collection of interest to general readers but also a useful teaching tool for Swedish and comparative literature courses around the world. The volume includes a comprehensive and accessible introduction by Lagerlöf specialist Bjarne Thorup Thomsen (University of Edinburgh). The nine stories have been arranged into three thematic sections: Women, Work and Writing; Landscapes, Families and ‘Others’; Epochs, Societies and Values.
As our specialist scholar writes in his introduction, the collection has been designed to offer the reader a multifaceted mixture of stories. The selected narratives showcase different times, places, atmospheres, styles and genre modes. Some stories are obvious instances of prose fiction, while others are balanced somewhere between fictional and factual writing. With the nine narratives listed chronologically according to their dates of first publication, the content of the volume is as follows (annotations by Bjarne Thorup Thomsen):
‘Mamsell Fredrika’ / ‘Miss Fredrika’ – an imaginative and extravagantly expressed tribute to a female trailblazer in Swedish literature, centred, like many of Lagerlöf’s stories, around Christmas.
‘De fågelfrie’ / ‘The Outlaws’ – a narrative, steeped in nature mysticism and fin-de-siècle-feel, about clashes, but also fluid boundaries, between pagan and Christian mindsets in medieval times, fuelled by the descriptive energy that Lagerlöf attributed to her writing at the time.
‘Gudsfreden’ / ‘God’s Peace at Christmas’ – an enquiry into a close encounter, with elements of crime, between human and animal, and Lagerlöf’s first depiction of the Ingmarssons, the powerful family of peasants that would take centre stage in Jerusalem.
‘Spelmannen’ / ‘The Fiddler’ – a story, both playful and uncanny, about a self-assured musician and the shadows of abandoned family, set during a Nordic summer night in a landscape that is both attraction and trap.
‘Silvergruvan’ / ‘The Silver Mine’ – a nation-orientated narrative about the homeland’s real riches, anticipating some of the major themes in Nils Holgersson.
‘Två spådomar’ / ‘Two Prophecies’ – a biographical sketch in six life moments, infused with motifs of deciphering, reading and writing, about Lagerlöf’s route to becoming an author, published at a time when her national, and indeed international, fame was growing fast.
‘Bortbytingen’ / ‘The Changeling’ – a suspense-filled story about unexpected contact and strange parallels between a human and an ‘alien’ sphere, featuring an unconventional and resourceful heroine.
‘Den heliga bilden i Lucca’ / ‘The Sacred Image in Lucca’ – a miraculous legend and picaresque travel adventure played out in Italy, foregrounding poor but hopeful working-class characters and told in a lucid style and light-hearted tone.
‘Dimman’ / ‘The Mist’ – a modern parable with a punishing ending, published in the context of the First World War and critiquing attitudes, including artistic ones, to the reality of global conflict and suffering.
We enthusiastically echo Bjarne’s assessment that Lagerlöf’s rich corpus of short stories and related forms of short prose deserves renewed attention – and up-to-date translations. These are the first retranslations of the texts in our anthology for over a century. We are sure that all anglophone readers, from committed Selma followers to those discovering her work for the first time, will fall under the spell of her storytelling in this varied volume.
Norvik Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of much-awaited titles. From a stark portrayal of contemporary Greenlandic society to new classics by Lagerlöf and Skram, 2025 is set to be a year of fresh discoveries and exciting reading in the company of Norvik Press!
Sørine Steenholdt: Zombieland
Sørine Steenholdt(b. 1986)
Translated from Greenlandic into Danish by Niviaq Korneliussen
Illustrated by Maja-Lisa Kehlet Hansen
Translated from Danish into English by Charlotte Barslund
Zombieland (Zombiet Nunaat) is cold comfort. Violent events occurring in already vulnerable lives are the turning points for Sørine Steenholdt’s powerful short stories, and it can be hard to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Rape, suicide, drug abuse, fires and car theft … few are spared. It is social criticism that gets under your skin.
Originally published in Greenlandic in 2015, Zombieland was nominated for The Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2016. The book is a collection that combines short stories with short sections of poetry. All texts can be seen as allegories that critique Greenlandic society. Some condemn the older generation of Greenlanders who fell into alcohol abuse and neglected their children. Others express the younger generation’s refusal to be represented as subservient to Denmark. While alcoholism has decreased, and sovereignty has been claimed, the memories of the suffering and betrayal of the older generation remain. All of Steenholdt’s stories emphasise the flaws of contemporary Greenland such as poor journalism, untrustworthy leadership, ineffective social institutions and a dysfunctional legal system making Steenholdt’s Greenland a ‘Zombieland’ – a place where no-one is in control.
Norvik Press are delighted to announce that this translation is the recipient of a Pen Translates award.
Tasiilaq, Greenland (Carl Skou)
Selma Lagerlöf: A Kaleidoscope of Stories
Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940)
This new addition to our well-established ‘Lagerlöf in English’ series will turn the spotlight on the power of short stories. The volume contains a selection of Lagerlöf’s matchless stories covering a range of themes, genres and periods of her career. Norvik’s prize-winning trio of Lagerlöf translators, Linda Schenck, Peter Graves and Sarah Death, has enjoyed a fruitful collaboration working on this project.
This is a collection of interest to general readers but also a useful teaching tool for Swedish and comparative literature courses around the world. The book includes a comprehensive and accessible introduction by Lagerlöf specialist Bjarne Thorup Thomsen (University of Edinburgh). The nine stories have been arranged into three thematic sections: Women and Writing; Landscapes, Families and ‘Others’; Epochs, Societies and Values.
Key autobiographical pieces, morality tales both dark and light, legends from several lands and folklore-inspired narratives combine to reveal the breadth and stylistic range of Lagerlöf’s storytelling skills.
Norvik Press ‘Lagerlöf in English’ Series
Amalie Skram: Sjur Gabriel and Two Friends
Port of Bergen, late 19th Century (Bergen University Library Collections)
Port of Bergen, late 19th Century (Bergen University Library Collections)
The two short novels Sjur Gabriel and To Venner (Two Friends), both published in 1887, are inspired by Amalie Skram’s early years in the bustling port of Bergen in Western Norway. The eponymous central character of Sjur Gabriel is a subsistence farmer struggling to make a living for himself and his family in the barren countryside, and to stop his wife from drinking to forget her misery. When their son Little-Gabriel is born, life seems brighter for some years – but the fragile hope for the future is threatened when the boy becomes seriously ill.
Two Friends focuses on the story of Sivert, the grandson of Sjur Gabriel. He is an apprentice in Bergen, but haunted by the presence of his grandparents, both of whom wander round the streets of Bergen as grotesque drunks. In order to escape he goes to sea as a cabin boy on the bark Two Friends, where he soon thrives on life at sea on a long voyage to Jamaica. When two Frenchmen come on board with their menagerie of exotic animals to transport back to France, he is befriended by them and becomes indispensable as interpreter and companion; but his inherited flaws of character soon reveal themselves and lead him to gamble away his chance of a better life.
Amalie Skram (1846-1905)
These novels are the first two in a series of four usually referred to as Hellemyrsfolket (The People of Hellemyr). The following two novels, S.G. Myre (1890) and Afkom (Descendants, 1898) follow the story of the family through the next generation in Bergen, as they try to free themselves from the taint of the past and make a better life for themselves and their families.
These two novels are translated from the Norwegian by Janet Garton, who has written a biography of the author and published several volumes of her letters. Also available from Norvik Press are Amalie Skram’s novels Lucie (1888), Fru Inés (1891) and Betrayed (1892), all translated by Katherine Hanson and Judith Messick.
‘Thirty or forty years ago there was a rockslide on Beinisvørđ. And it was no small one. Guillemot cliff ledges disappeared by the dozen, seal caves were closed off, and the entire profile of the headland changed. What I think I remember, and I don’t know where I’m getting it from, is that when the dust settled the bones of a human arm were found on the shore unearthed by the rockslide.’
‘I’ve never heard of that, but so many a man has met his maker in those parts that it wouldn’t be particularly odd ifskeleton fragments werefound.’
‘With a shackle dangling from the wrist?’ I asked, peering straight into the editor’s dark eyes.
Norvik Press is delighted to announce that Deydningar dansa á sandi by the Faroese author Jógvan Isaksen, translated by Marita Thomsen as Dead Men Dancing, has won the Petrona award for 2024. Many congratulations to author and translator!
Dead Men Dancing is the second of Jógvan Isaksen’s series of novels about the journalist and amateur detective Hannis Martinsson to be published by Norvik Press, after Walpurgis Tide (translated by John Keithsson) in 2016. The novel begins with the discovery of a corpse on the beach, the body of a man who has been shackled to rocks and left to drown. As Hannis investigates, he comes across evidence of more deaths which have been caused in the same way, and starts to realise that they are all linked to a local revolt several decades earlier, which tore a community apart. The repercussions have continued to the present day, and Hannis’ enquiries soon put his own life in danger.
Norvik Press’s credentials in translating and publishing work by women writers remain impressive. In 2025, for example, we are publishing three titles by women writers, and four out of our five translators for those titles are women, too.
Our latest blog looks at two of our regular favourites – a Swedish and a Norwegian author, each with a peerless storytelling pedigree – and introduces a modern-day writer from Greenland whose stories paint a startling picture of her country.
Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Lagerlöf’s youthful work Gösta Berlings saga was the jumping-off point for an extraordinary career. this largely home-schooled young trainee teacher decided to submit some chapters to a writing competition in Stockholm – and won! She then expanded those chapters into to a novel, which was published in 1891. It, and many of the novels that followed it, are whirlwinds of betrayal, love, human weakness and redemption.
Selma Lagerlöf(1858-1940)
The majority of the fast-moving romantic adventures are set around the shores of a lake in the dramatic north-westerly landscapes of Lagerlöf’s native province, Värmland.
Värmland. Photograph:MartinEdström
The author’s early works completely confounded the literary establishment of the time, but like so much of Lagerlöf’s masterly storytelling they have remained enduringly popular not only within Sweden but around the world. The prime example is her much-loved adventure tale Nils Holgersson’s Wonderful Journey through Sweden, about a boy punished for laziness by an elf who shrinks his size. The boy is then carried the length and breadth of the land on the back of a goose, learning precious life lessons by becoming part of the flock.
Norvik Press’s long-running ‘Lagerlöf in English’ series spans the full range of Lagerlöf’s work, from her action-packed Löwensköld Ring series to her multi-faceted trio of Mårbacka ‘memoirs’ via many standalone titles such as the touching and melancholy Emperor of Portugallia, and Banished, with its harrowing First World War scenes and ultimately uplifting pacifist message.
Steve Sem-Sandberg, winner of the Selma Lagerlöf Literature Prize 2024 awarded this month, spoke admiringly of her narrative instincts and her powers of imagination. Lagerlöf, he said, possessed a unique ability to combine the time-bound and the timeless, to take things and people she had herself experienced and transform them. Norvik’s three translators – Sarah Death, Peter Graves and Linda Schenck – can only concur. They take delight in translating Selma’s work and are currently enjoyably engaged on their first team project, an anthology of her short stories. This newest addition to the ‘Lagerlöf in English’ series will be published next year under the title A Kaleidoscope of Stories.
Amalie Skram
Amalie Skram (1846-1905)
This adventurous nineteenth-century Norwegian writer is nowadays mostly known – and still widely read – for her novels about the unenviable fates of young women in a society which expects them to be modest and chaste, and brings them up to be obedient wives and devoted mothers. Norvik Press has previously published three of these, translated by the talented American translating team of Katherine Hanson and Judith Messick.
In Betrayed, the child-like Aurora embarks on marriage – and a long sea voyage – with her worldly-wise new husband as ship’s captain, only to discover with horror that he has had a number of sexual encounters; the discovery both repels and fascinates her, and drives her to torment him until both become victims of a repressive social system. Fru Inéstells the story of a woman married to a callous and profligate husband, who longs to experience the sexual ecstasy she has never known. The novel is set in Constantinople, a city the author knew well, and the sights, sounds and smells of the teeming metropolis blend with the growing anguish of Inés to reach a dreadful climax. The heroine of Lucie, on the other hand, is a girl from the other side of the tracks, a dancing girl and mistress of a respectable civil servant, Theodor Gerner; he decides to redeem her by marrying her, only to destroy her by his rigid expectations of acceptable behaviour.
Our new venture is a translation of the work which was originally considered Amalie Skram’s crowning achievement, the four-volume series The People of Hellemyr. The novels have often been compared to Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series; they are set in and around Skram’s native Bergen, and the narrow alleys and bustling harbour of the old port are central to the action.
Bergen harbour, late 19th century. Photograph: Bergen fotoarkiv
The first two volumes, in Janet Garton’s translation, will be published in 2025. Sjur Gabriel follows the struggle for existence of a desperately poor farming family, scraping a living from the stony soil, until the arrival of a golden child seems to offer a faint hope of a richer life. Two Friends follows the adventures of their grandson Sivert, who becomes a sailor and travels to Jamaica; he is a strong and willing lad who seems to have every chance of getting on in life, but he cannot flee from the fatal weakness of character which he has inherited.
Sörine Steenholdt
In a new departure for Norvik Press, we are excited to announce that we will also be publishing a Greenlandic book in 2025. Sørine Steenholdt was born in Paamiut in southern Greenland in 1986, and in 2015 her debut book, a short story and poetry collection called Zombiet Nunaat (Zombieland), was published.
All the texts can be seen as allegories that critique Greenlandic society. Some condemn the older generation of Greenlanders who fell into alcohol abuse and neglected their children, whilst others express the younger generation’s refusal to be represented as subservient to Denmark. While alcoholism has decreased, and sovereignty has been claimed, the memories of the suffering and betrayal of the older generation remain. Steenholdt’s stories emphasise the flaws of contemporary Greenland such as poor journalism, untrustworthy leadership, ineffective social institutions and a dysfunctional legal system, making her Greenland a ‘Zombieland’ – a place where no-one is in control.
Zombieland, cover of the original Greenlandic edition
The book was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature prize on first publication, and Norvik Press has been awarded a PEN translation grant for this translation. It will be translated from Danish by the well-known literary translator Charlotte Barslund.
To order the Norvik Press books highlighted in this blog, please follow the green hyperlinks or request the titles you would like at your favourite bookshop.
To celebrate Independent Bookshop Week (Saturday 15 – Saturday 22 June), we are teaming up with indie bookseller and community hub Script Haven, in Worcester, UK. We interviewed Script Haven’s founder, poet and spoken word artist Leena Batchelor to launch our partnership.
Norvik Press: What would be the first line of the story of Script Haven?
Leena Batchelor: A dream manifested into reality, against the odds.
NP: How did bookselling begin for you?
LB: As a self-published author, I usually take my own books to events to sell. I was disappointed to discover mainstream bookshops wouldn’t stock them, especially when I won a publishing contract with a local publisher as part of winning the Worcestershire Poet Laureate competition in 2020. Gradually, I became aware of other indie authors and publishers who had the same experience, and decided I wanted to try and correct the situation.
NP: Which books are your favourites to hand-sell?
LB: Always those by indie authors and indie publishers, especially the more esoteric titles.
NP: Do you host or belong to any reading groups?
LB: We do! We have a monthly book group called Worcester Worms run by one of our very successful crime authors, Carla Kovach.
NP: Where do you usually discover or learn about new books to add to stock?
LB: From a variety of sources. Often, authors and publishers reach out to us, and the Booksellers Association is a great resource (and support!).
NP: How does the local community make use of Script Haven?
LB: Wow – where do I start! We host a huge variety of community events to support local causes, and provide a safe haven for those who simply want somewhere to come and relax. To date, we have facilitated sign language sessions, LGBTQ+ talks, open mic poetry events to raise awareness of issues such as Multiple sclerosis (MS), homelessness, Amnesty’s work, mental health, the list is growing! We’re all about ensuring the local community can easily engage with creativity in all its forms in a safe and welcoming environment.
NP: Script Haven is also an events space. Tell us about what’s coming up/what you’re looking forward to 🙂
LB: We host 3–5 events a week, so our diary is crammed! We’re excited for our first CreARTivity Festival during the May half-term, a week full of family-friendly events and evening performances, each day having a different theme. We’ve got numerous book launches booked in (pun intended!), including TM Logan (The Holiday, The Catch) and Melita Thomas (1000 Tudor People). We’re also holding an event to celebrate Lughnasadh with a meal and stories.
We’re all about ensuring the local community can easily engage with creativity in all its forms in a safe and welcoming environment.
LEENA BATCHELOR
NP: Script Haven is dog-friendly – tell us about the dogs who come in!
LB: They are fluffy, snuggly, and great characters! They adore the treats we provide too. Our furry friends add so much life to our days, and we have quite a few regulars, too. I know I’m biased, but my favourite is my youngest daughter’s Irish Doodle, who is the size of a small pony already at 7 months old, but such a gentle cuddly teddy-bear!
NP: What shows up on your TikTok ‘For You Page’? We’re intrigued by the cellar you featured on your account recently – the perfect spooky addition to any bookshop…!
LB: Cute animals and book- and coffee-adverts! The cellar was an unexpected find during renovation works. Turns out our building dates back to the 16th century, and was at one stage a hotel, with the cellar being used to store barrels; the original barrel chute is still there. It’s a perfect spooky theme for us as we also host 42Worcester, the UK’s only alternative-genre spoken word event (think gothic horror, fantasy, sci-fi). I also write and perform at the event monthly.
NP: What was the last meme or post that made you laugh?
LB: It would either be a video of my cat, Mozart, giving my Social Media Manager head-boops when she was looking after him; or a meme she sent me, with a pigeon and the caption ‘send this to someone so that they have to open their phone and see this pigeon bopping his head uncontrollably’ – of course I had to open it!
NP: You have Finnish heritage. Have you ever visited Nurmes, or would you like to visit one day?
LB: Sadly I haven’t yet, but absolutely. I’d love to meet up with my aunt and her children, who I haven’t seen for over 30 years.
NP: Would you like to share a snippet of your poetry with us?
LB: Sure. This is a poem I wrote recently about what words and writing mean to me:
Illuminated letters
As scribes of old with desire of coloured ink upon parchment wrote,
You illume my life.
As whirlpools swirl the waters and seas,
I find my heart wrapped in yours.
As the moon calls to the tide,
The sun to life, and winds to breath,
So you encompass treasures in my life.
NP: Thank you, Leena!
Stay tuned for our ‘twinning’ with Script Haven this summer.
Script Haven opened in August 2023 and is Worcester’s only independent bookshop. It predominantly supports indie authors and publishers, and in January was voted by The Times readers as the 3rd Best Indie Bookshop in the UK.
Support Script Haven by ordering from their Bookshop.org shop here.
It may surprise our readers to know that in the room where the Norvik Press team gathers for our meetings, there resides a polar bear skull and a family of cuddly polar bears! (Or, this might not be surprising at all – we are the publishers of the quirky Lobster Life!)
This curious fact is relevant beacause 27 February 2024 is International Polar Bear Day. To celebrate, UCL Scandinavian Studies is hosting an afternoon of in-person events, including a language taster, exhibition, and panel: Stories from the Nordic North Atlantic and The Arctic. Please come along! The celebrations are free to attend, and you can drop-in or book through Eventbrite here.
The full programme is below:
1–2pm: Language Taster: Words for Snow and Ice in Arctic Languages (Dr Riitta Valijärvi, Associate Professor of Finnish and Minority Languages), UCL Art Museum (drop-in)
This taster is about words for snow and ice in a selection of Arctic languages. We will begin with a discussion about culture-specific vocabulary across languages, followed by plenty of examples from languages like Finnish, Swedish, North Sámi, Greenlandic, and Nenets. We will touch upon language families, climate change, and English vocabulary. The session includes lots of pictures and an interactive element.
2–5.30pm: Pop-up Exhibition: The Arctic and Nordic Landscapes, UCL Art Museum (drop-in)
Come and have a look at some of the items in UCL’s collections that represent (hi)stories from the Nordic region.
5.30–7pm: Panel Discussion: Storied Arctics / Arctic Voices, Medical Sciences and Anatomy, G46, H O Schild Pharmacology Lecture Theatre (booking required)
Conversations with polar researchers, authors, and poets.
7–8pm: Reception, North Cloisters (booking required)
The map inspired us here at Norvik Press to think about how London is portrayed within our books. We have zoomed in on two of our favourite examples of London in literature below.
Ana had got into the habit of travelling into the City at around four in the afternoon. She took the underground to Bank and rose up into the anonymous security of marble and glass. She felt at home in the City’s ivory-coloured concrete desert, where she had been a frequent visitor over the past ten to twelve years. She knew the streets, the cafés, the bars, the smooth upthrust of the buildings which blocked out the sky. She knew the well-cut suits and jackets, the high heels and the brief cases with the same label as her own. She knew the purposeful steps which echoed back from between the walls like the hollow beat of drumsticks.
She had finally arranged an interview with the HR manager. She circled around City Place House where Rower had its premises, and ended up sitting in the large high-ceilinged bar just opposite. She placed herself strategically at a table right next to the glass façade, so that she had a view of her former workplace. Sitting in the low armchair, she sipped her Campari soda. She leafed absent-mindedly through the Financial Times, and felt she was out of circulation. She recognised some of her former colleagues as they walked past on the pavement and cut across the square in front of the entrance. […]
She finished her drink and walked out of the bar and across towards City Place House and the sterile little marble square. With her smart appearance, the discreet elegance of her suit, the shoes moulded perfectly to her feet, and the stiletto heels which added three inches to her height, she looked like the career woman she had been in her earlier life, and blended in with her surroundings. It struck her that the fountain in the middle of the square looked touching in its stripped-down minimalism with the threadlike jets gathered into vertical bundles.
Their baggage had been sent on board and after Ory and Riber had said good-bye to their landlady, they went out to buy a few little things before departure.
‘Is there anything else?’ Riber asked, holding packages in his hands. They had walked out of a shop in St. Paul’s Churchyard.
Ory stood for a moment and thought carefully. ‘Nothing I remember,’ she said. ‘Of course we’ll be forgetting the most important thing.’ […]
Down the street they hailed a cab. Riber called out “Victoria Docks” as they got inside and off they went as fast as the moving throng of pedestrians and vehicles allowed. […]
Then the cab stopped. Riber shot up, put on his hat, pulled on his overcoat, stepped out and paid the driver.
Ory gathered her packages. Riber held his hand out to her and she jumped down.
Silently they walked side by side across the paved wharf that looked like an enormous courtyard, huge warehouses on three sides, reverberating with activity and tumult. The fourth side was open to the water, chock-full of large-hulled steamers and high-masted sailing ships; all the vessels that could find room were alongside the paved wharf, loading or unloading cargo.
‘Stop, Aurora! Here is the ship. Orion ahoy!’
‘Ahoy!’ came back in return, and a red-freckled man wearing a flat-crowned cap and a wool scarf around his neck appeared waving from the rail of a full-rigged ship.
–– Translated by Katherine Hanson and Judith Messick
