Siri Broch Johansen Awarded Ibsen Prize

 

Siri Broch Johansen

The Ibsen Prize is Norway's only drama award and considered one of the most prestigious international drama prizes. Last week, on March 20 (Ibsen's birthday), in a first for a Sámi author, Siri Broch Johansen was awarded the Ibsen Prize for her play, Per Hansen: A Faithful Man/oskkáldas almmái which premiered in October, 2024 at Norway's traveling theater, Riksteatret.

Per Hansen: A Faithful Man is described on the theater's website as “a juicy, humorous, steamy erotic, and honest piece. It's about adult love, complex life choices, and enduring this life.” A rave review on NRK celebrates how the two characters, both Sámi, explore a relationship outside marriage, with all the heartbreak and loneliness that can involve. 

Much of the action takes place on a sofa as the actors talk about sex, desire, and what's possible in explicit terms. From the reviews, it seems that Norway has never seen Sámi people through this lens before--as ordinary, not particularly exotic human beings--yet still Sámi for all that. 

Siri Broch Johansen is, in addition to an author of several books, a language teacher and singer, living in the Tana municipality in East Finnmark/Sápmi. I know her work from her biography of the Sámi activist Elsa Laula Renberg, published in 2015.

Ollu lihkku!! (Congratulations!)