Norwegian Festival of Literature

The Norwegian Festival of Literature (in Norwegian Sigrid Undset-dagene) is the biggest non commercial literary festival in the Nordic countries taking place in May/June in Lillehammer every year since 1995.

The festival is includes all the Nordic countries in its scope and has developed into a popular festival where both writers and people from the book publishing industry, both domestic and foreign, are represented. The 2013-festival had over 200 events, 400 artists/writers and counted 24,173 visitors. The program consists of debates, readings, concerts, films, seminars, theater, interviews and more and the visitors are represented by kids, journalists, publishers, up and coming writers, librarians, students, translators, critics, politicians, local readers and the general public. Pegasus is the festival's offering to children and youths and consists of nearly one-third of the program.

J.M. Coetzee, Herta Müller, Amos Oz, Zadie Smith, Per Petterson, Märta Tikkanen, André Brink, Margaret Atwood, John Irving, Ko Un, Sofi Oksanen, Shaun Tan, Adonis, Antony and the Johnsons are amongst the previous guests at the festival.

The festival originated from the Nansen Academy's Sigrid Undset seminaries in 1993 and 1994. The festival has been named after the Norwegian author and Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset who lived in Lillehammer between 1919 and her death in 1949.Oppland county municipality has provided support for the festival since its inception. In 1999 the Norwegian government contributed financially allocating a grant in the annual state budget as an earmarked part of the budget post for the Maihaugen cultural museum in Lillehammer. In 2001 the Norwegian Publishers Association commenced regularly contributing financially. Since 2006 the festival has been classified as a "Junction Festival", which entails a separate item in the State Budget.

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