Meet the Oslo authors of "Nordic Visions"!
Storytelling has been a major force in the Nordic countries for thousands of years, renowned for its particular sense of dark humour, featuring pacts with nature and a view of the worlds you seldom find in other places.
In the anthology Nordic Visions - The Best of Nordic Speculative Fiction, you’ll find short stories from some of the best contemporary authors of science fiction, fantasy, horror and weird, hailing from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and The Faroe Islands. Many of the stories appear for the first time in English.
Most have heard about Nordic crime fiction with its dark noir flare or the Icelandic Sagas. This anthology combines all that is unique about Nordic speculative fiction, from the darkest dystopian science fiction to terrifying horror. From the rational to the eccentric, these stories combine a deep sense of place with social criticism, themes of loneliness and the concern for humanity's impact on the wilderness.
Nordic Visions was published last October by Solaris Books (Rebellion Publishing).
Two of the Norwegian authors in the anthology and the editor are local to Oslo. Come meet Tone Almhjell and Margret Helgadottir for a chat about their work, this anthology, and Nordic and Norwegian speculative fiction. Both Tone and Margret write fiction directly in English and submit their work to foreign publishers, so they will also talk about why they have gone down this route.
Tone and Margret will be joined in conversation by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay.
Registration is free, but required to attend as there is limited space!
When: 2 September, 17.15-18.45
Where: Prismatic Pages, Rathkes gate 7b
Margrét is a four times British Fantasy Award-nominated author and anthology editor, and the winner of the inaugural Brave New Words Award from Starburst Magazine. Nordic Visions is her 9th anthology as editor. Margrét’s stories have appeared in a number of both magazines and print anthologies and her debut book The Stars Seem So Far Away, was finalist to British Fantasy Awards 2016.
Tone writes fantasy in both English and Norwegian. Her debut novel, The Twistrose Key, was first published in the U.S. in 2013 by Penguin but has since been published all over the world. The novel, a middle-grade portal fantasy, was very well received. Among other accolades, it was named a Kirkus Best Book of the Year as well as one of the best debuts for young readers in 2013 by the American Booksellers Association. The companion book, Thornghost, also received great reviews and was nominated to ARK’s award for children’s books in 2016.
Bodhisattva is a World Fantasy Award - winning editor and translator, as well as an Associate Professor in Global Cultural Studies at University of Oslo, and he is the leader of CoFutures, an international research group on contemporary futurisms headquartered in Oslo. Bodhisattva has also been the editor-in-chief of Fafnir - Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research.
