Monika Fagerholm has been bestowed with the 2020 Selma Lagerlöf Prize, a prestigious literary award instituted in 1984. The accolade is granted to authors who further the spirit of beloved author and first female Nobel Prize in Literature recipient, Selma Lagerlöf.

Fagerholm is awarded for “an authorship that with virtuosic voicing portrays individuals and groups that strive for meaning in an existence that does not allow for stability, a world wherein misfortune hangs in the air.” The award ceremony will be held in the town of Sunne in August.

Week 19’s bestseller lists from Norway see Hedvig Montgomery once again climb in the non-fiction category. The Adolescent Years, the fifth installment in her Parental Magic series, lands the No. 3 spot. The paperback list’s No. 3 placement goes to Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger’s Smoke Screen. Lastly, Katrine Engberg grabs two spots on the e-book list, coming in at No. 8 with Blood Moon, and No. 10 with The Tenant.

Niklas Natt och Dag has been granted with the prestigious City of Stockholm’s Honorary Award for 2020. The accolade is handed out to cultural practitioners within five fields that have been deemed of great influence to the cultural life of Stockholm. The award ceremony will take place in August in Stockholm City Hall.

The jury motivation was as follows: “Niklas Natt och Dag portrays Stockholm’s darker history. Much like a magician he conjures the reeking, violent destitution in the alleyways and backwoods we to this day inhabit. He has thus far published two installments in a trilogy, The Wolf and the Watchman and 1794, in a genre sometimes referred to as ‘Bellman Noir’. The language guides the reader back in time, without obstructing the experience of a breathlessly thrilling tale. The books have been lauded as crime novels, but are also stories about immorality and evil – and about those seeking compassion and justice, in spite of it all.”

Sara Johnsen and Pål Sletaune have been announced as the recipients of the Fritt Ord Tribute for their TV series 22 July. The Fritt Ord Tribute acknowledges remarkable efforts to promote free speech, often in connection with current affairs.

22 July has received great praise in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and earlier this year Johnsen was awarded the Nordic TV Drama Screenplay Award for her outstanding writing on the series.

In City at the End: The Resistance we return to Enger’s thought-provoking and acclaimed dystopian universe.

Stella Staerk has made her fateful choice: she’ll stay with the Women’s Battalion, a clandestine resistance movement based out of an abandoned powerplant just outside of Widowton. She is plagued by the terrible realization that her long lost brother Sirius has all along been a central figure within the Janus group. In a world where everything is now running scarce, the Janus members have taken to culling the population by killing fertile young women – the future mothers of the next generation.

In City at the End: The Resistance, Stella becomes a key player in a guerrilla movement operating within Widowton, which ultimately forces her to confront the question of whether the end actually justifies the means. Meanwhile she struggles to adapt to the strict routines inside the Women’s Battalion and desperately longs for her family and friends.

City at the End: The Resistance is the much anticipated second installment in the YA-series about Stella Staerk and her struggle to survive in a Nordic war-ton, dystopian future where young women are being targeted.

Rolf-Magne Golten Andersen started his screenwriting career at NRK (The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation), where he also worked as radio producer and project leader. After ten years, Andersen decided to focus whole-heartedly on his screenwriting and relocated from Oslo to the small Norwegian village of Dale. He has since written among else the acclaimed and innovative TV series Magnus (2019) together with creator Vidar Magnussen. The successful comedy drama series was nominated for ‘Best Comedy’ at the Golden Screen Awards, and selected for the official competition at Cannes Series, where its nominations included ‘Best TV Series’ and ‘Best Script’.

Andersen’s other works include the comedy series Hytteliv (2017), Superkrim 2020, and Førstegangstjenesten, of which the latter two are scheduled to premiere this year.

Currently, Andersen is working on two projects for Yellow Bird.