Exciting author line-up for Scandinavian Fiction Podcast
We’re visiting Solvej Balle in Denmark for the new season of Scandinavian Fiction Podcast. Photo: Stine Emil Thorbøll, Scandinavian Fiction
I’m writing this entry on the 22nd of March 2024.
About this time last year, our producer Mads Odgaard Smidstrup and I were travelling to Norway to visit the Norwegian author Vigdis Hjorth in her house on Næsøya, an island outside of Oslo.
Vigdis is a gifted storyteller, in her books as well as in conversation, and I remember how she, on several occasions, leapt from her chair to demonstrate anecdotes, as if she were an actor in a play, the floor of her wooden house creaking beneath her feet.
The Swedish author Johanne Lykke Naderehvandi is featured in the new season of Scandinavian Fiction Podcast. Photo: Mads Odgaard Smidstrup, Scandinavian Fiction
The unedited recording of our conversation with Vigdis ran 90 minutes, which must be the longest interview I’ve done in my career as a journalist, and definitely one of my personal favourites.
Mads and I started editing that evening in our shared room in Oslo, and the interview was divided into two podcast episodes. These marked the beginning of Scandinavian Fiction Podcast.
This year, we’re preparing a new season of our podcast, which will be available this autumn.
I’m currently on a train to Funen in Denmark, where I’ll be meeting up with photographer Stine Emil Thorbøll. We’re sailing to Ærø, an island in southern Denmark, to pay a visit to the remarkable Danish author Solvej Balle.
Balle received the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2022 for the first three volumes of her septology On The Calculation of Volume (org. Om udregning af rumfang), which were snapped up by Faber in the UK and New Directions in the US.
The books are absolutely phenomenal. I have a long list of questions for her.
You can also look forward to interviews with Elin Cullhed (Sweden), Johanne Lykke Naderehvandi (Sweden), Erlend Loe (Norway), and Geir Gulliksen (Norway), amongst others, in the coming season.
And of course, we’ll continue to bring you interviews with a wide range of literary translators on our website.
– Rasmus Meldgaard Harboe, Editor
NEWS: We’re launching Scandinavian Fiction Agency. The agency offers creative, publishing, and editorial services to clients around the world. Read more.