NORLA and Are Tjihkkom, Sámi Translator and Publisher

 

Are Tjihkkom, Sámi Translator and Publisher  

Back in the late seventies, relatively few people outside Norway knew much about Norwegian authors other than Sigrid Undset, Knut Hamsun, and Henrik Ibsen. The Norwegian Authors Union decided to create an organization with support from the state’s Ministry of Culture to support the translation of Norwegian literature to other languages. This was NORLA, Norwegian Literature Abroad, and for some years it was a one-woman band with a small office in Oslo. Kristin Brudevoll, the director from 1978 to 2006, turned NORLA into a powerhouse for exporting and publicizing Norwegian literature. Now with a large staff and a central office, NORLA awards grants to publishers to subsidize translations, assists myriad translators develop the skills and contacts for successful careers, and arranges conferences and festivals that promote Norwegian authors in translation.

From the time the publishing house I co-founded, Seal Press in Seattle, began its imprint, Women in Translation, in the early 1980s with titles such as An Everyday Story: Norwegian Women’s Fiction and Tove Ditlevsen’s Early Spring, I’ve worked with NORLA as a translator and editor. I’ve continued to do so through my current publishers, the University of Minnesota Press. I was introduced to the novel, Clearing Out, by Helene Uri through NORLA’s newsletter, Books from Norway, and later went on to translate it. NORLA was also a major funder for the big project of translating Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds. Because of NORLA, Norwegian books have been translated to around seventy world languages. Every month NORLA posts an interview with a “Translator of the Month,” who could be from Indonesia, Spain, Bulgaria, or Japan.

In December 2025, NORLA’s choice for “Translator of the Month” was Are Tjihkkom, who lives in Drag, Norway. He translates fiction from English, Spanish, Norwegian, and other languages into the minority language of Lule Sámi/ julevsámegiella, which is spoken and read in Nordland county in Norway, especially in Hamarøy Municipality, where it’s one of the official languages. Lule Sámi is also spoken around the Lule River in Sweden, most notably in Jokkmokk/ Jåhkåmåhkke. Along with Jokkmokk, Drag, home to the cultural and educational center, Árran, is a center for the revival of the Lule Sámi language.

Are Tjihkkom is a linguist with a recent bachelor’s degree from the University of Oslo.  At twenty-three he has been translating for a number of years, starting in high school when he began with Alice in Wonderland. He’s translated work by everyone from Virginia Woolf to Gabriel Garcia Márquez. In 2020 he set up his own publishing company, Tjihkkom Almmudahka, and has released a number of books, including Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

In his interview for NORLA, Tjihkkom explained his focus on translations into Lule Sámi:

I grew up with very little Sámi literature. There were only a handful of books available that everyone in my generation (and the generation before me) has read, and new releases were few and far between. I’ve heard people talk about the ‘Sámi agony’ of being required to read certain books regardless of whether you like them or not, just in order to be able to read something in Sámi. That’s less true nowadays than it once was, but there is no reliable producer of literature in Lule Sámi, meaning that books are still in chronically short supply. The need to translate books stemmed from the fact that there is no system that enables translation as predictable and steady work, so I took it upon myself, following in the footsteps of many language workers and translators before me.

For a fascinating exploration of his process in translating a language that was long mainly oral and only standardized in its current form in the 1980s, with “a huge number of words and expressions [that]lack good, well-established equivalents” see the full interview with this gifted linguist in English. 

 

  

 

 

Best Indie Historical Fiction of 2025: Reindeer of Chinese Gardens

Every December, Kirkus Reviews publishes a list of its choices for the one hundred best indie titles in different categories.  I'm really pleased to share the news that Reindeer of Chinese Gardens has been chosen as one of six best indie historical novels in 2025 by Kirkus Reviews. It was an honor earlier in the year to receive a starred review, but this is even better! I'm especially happy because much of the novel is set in Port Townsend and highlights the important histories of newcomers from different countries--Chinese, Norwegian, and Sámi.