Campaigning for Criticism

As something completely new, the Nordic Literature editorial staff has decided to launch the Nordic Council's Unnofficial Criticism Award, or "Nordiska rådets inofficiella kritikpris", as our Swedish editor calls it. He draws attention to the fact that literary criticism in the newspapers isn't as firmly ensconced as it used to be. Journalism is ousting it bit by bit. John C. Jørgensen expresses the same concern in his article, but he optimistically points out that, in spite of this loss of ground, today's literary critics are much better educated than they used to be, and many of them have learned to write in a language that is intelligible to ordinary people. Thomas Forser maintains that literature is doing better that criticism, but he agrees with Jørgensen that, even though the reviews are shorter than they used to be, this isn't necessarily a bad thing: "Short texts aren't bad as long as they're good!"

In order to focus on criticism as a literary practice, Nordic Literature has nominated ten candidates for the Criticism Award, and given them the task of reviewing the candidates for the Nordic Council's Literary Prize. The winner of the award will be announced at the September Book Fair in Gothenburg.

The other main theme of this edition of Nordic Literature is Nordic drama. Plays are being written and staged as never before, but the audience doesn't seem to show the same interest - and the newspapers show no interest at all. A dislike of theatre, as old as theatre itself, is expressed in several articles, and Hungarian/ German Peter Szondi is quoted as saying that, in these anti-theatre times, the dramatist himself becomes the assassin of his own characters. However, not everyone shares this bleak view; modern Nordic drama is being "exported" to many other countries and its younger relative, radio drama, seems to be flourishing.

This year's annual also includes articles that fall outside the main themes. The winner of the Nordic Council's Literary Prize , Kari Hotakainen, recounts his surprise at suddenly becoming a bestselling author and receiving several awards after a long literary career. We also hear about the dominance and problems of the realistic novel in Sweden, about Icelandic critical novels and systematic poetry, and from Norway attention is drawn to the rediscovery of one of the country's most outstanding illustrators and satirists, Olaf Gulbransson. Contemporary Danish poetry is selectively reviewed, and we are particularly pleased to present a general introduction to modern Sámi literature. Originally, our intention was to have a similar article on Greenlandic literature, but hopefully it will be included in next year's edition.

During the twelve years that Nordic Literature has existed, it has been our aim to publish the annual in May, but now we've at last realized that our readers' interest in literature is greater in early autumn than in early summer. From this year on, the Nordic Literature annual will be published in September.

Jógvan Isaksen, Chief Editor