Across all arts, I would say the political drama television series Borgen by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. Borgen depicts the balance between modern Danish family life and political ambition. ‘Borgen’ together with the crime series Broen—a prominent example of the Nordic noir genre—sustain the success of the Dogma 95 films and reinforce the strong international reputation of Danish cinema. The success of the television series generated curiosity for Danish storytelling, including the literary kind.
When it comes to literature, I believe the most significant export of the 21st century is Peter Høeg, whose Smilla’s Sense of Snow is currently being adapted for television. However, Danish children’s literature also stands out; an important recent instance has been Jacob Martin Strid’s The Fantastic Bus, which, despite its length and size, is being translated widely. Danish children’s literature, characterised by strong artistic ambition in both writing and illustration as well as consistently taking children seriously, has put the country on the map.
Describe the structure of your organization and its goal(s). How many staff members does it employ and what are their main activities?
The Danish Arts Foundation’s Committee for Literary Project Funding is part of the country's largest arts foundation, which works to spread the arts to a wide audience all over Denmark, to promote Danish art internationally, and to pave the way for talented artists. The committee rotates every four years and is currently made up of the chair Carsten Fenger-Grøndahl, and authors Ellen Holmboe and Peder Frederik Jensen. The committee decides how the grants are distributed as well as the strategy for the promotion of Danish literature abroad.
In terms of literary export, the Committee serves as a board. The daily work to promote Danish literature abroad is carried out by us at the Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces, more specifically my team, which works with literature.
Our work requires the equivalent of two to three full-time employees, but our five employees also have national obligations for the Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces, and work for this team only part of the time. Our main activities are organizing fellowships and visitor programs for international translators and editors, participating in international book fairs to promote Danish literature in translation, facilitating an ongoing conversation about Danish literature via the Danish Lit Lounge’s Instagram account and monthly newsletter and grants for translation and production as well as sample translations.
How much funding does your organization disburse in a year and where does the funding come from?
The committee has an annual budget of EUR 2.79 million to distribute across the literary funding programs. The funding is provided by the Danish state, as part of the Danish Arts Foundation, which distributes distributes approximately EUR 67.02 million annually through around sixty funding programs, benefitting about six thousand projects.
As many as four Nobel Prizes in Literature have been awarded to writers working in English in the past decade alone. Translation into English has also been a crucial factor for many of the other winners to be considered in the first place. In light of this linguistic hegemony, I imagine that there is an increased focus on translation into English, the costs of which can’t be met by market demand alone. Given your own institution’s limited resources, what criteria do you use to choose which authors to fund, and, given the sources of your funding, are there certain considerations factored into your selection?
To ensure that the translation grants result in publications, we require that the translation grant application be submitted by the interested publisher. Apart from the formal requirements, the artistic quality of the publication is considered by the members of the committee. When assessing the literary quality, the committee examines artistic proficiency and looks for professional and linguistic ability. The willingness to try out new themes and expressions is a positive, as are the cultural and societal relevance.
The editorial quality of the publication and the publisher’s general professionalism: their position on the interrelationship between form and content, as well as the quality of the editing, design, production and marketing.
The qualifications of the translator: the translator should have experience with translating literature of high quality and can document this as well as whether the translator translates into his or her mother tongue and when the translation is directly from Danish.
The applicant should also show considerations of the publication’s relevance, current interest and necessity, how the project contributes to strengthening Danish literature abroad and, possibly, how the project is presented to potential readers.
Finally, the work’s current interest. As a rule, the committee gives priority to works by living authors rather than deceased ones unless an authorship has new life and current interest. In the case of general cultural literature and non-fiction, the committee will also assess whether the work communicates broadly, with a general cultural purpose.
The committee prioritizes supporting publications that are to a lesser degree expected to be able to manage themselves financially.
A literary ecosystem not only includes writers and translators but also editors, reviewers, publishers, literary agents, and booksellers, all of whom play a role in fostering a vibrant literary scene. Bearing this in mind, how would you describe the state of the literary ecosystem in your country (e.g., is it healthy, in your opinion)? Does any part of your funding go toward supporting the wider literary infrastructure (as opposed to just writers and translators)? If there was a local equivalent of a magazine with a global focus like Asymptote, would it receive any ongoing support from your organization, for example?
The number of publications continues to rise each year, and we are also seeing an increase in readership, particularly due to digitalization and the growing popularity of audiobooks. However, digitization also presents challenges for the economy of the literary ecosystem. This is why the Danish Minister of Culture appointed a working group made up of participants from all areas of the literary ecosystem, tasked with providing recommendations for a new literature policy. The working group is focusing on the conditions of authors in a time of streaming as well as changing behaviors of readers and culture consumers in general.
Two different examples of initiatives supported by the Danish Arts Foundation include the initial start-up funding for the Cross-Media School of Children’s Fiction, a two-year interdisciplinary educational program aimed at developing the next generation of skilled storytellers, and the online bookstore Mikrofest, which acts as a one-point shop for 40+ independent micropublishers. Both received start-up funding, and the Cross-Media School of Children’s Fiction was later incorporated into the national budget.
Regarding your question about support for publication of a literary magazine I am pleased to inform, that it is possible to apply for funding for both print and digital media through the Danish Media Support which is part of the Ministry for Culture.
However, most of the funding is directed towards national and international publication and production support.
The sitcom Seinfeld was notably a flop in Germany. Similarly, authors who encounter success in one culture sometimes do not receive the same reception in another. What are some surprising crossover successes or failures you have encountered in your tenure with this institution and what do you think might have led to these outcomes?
Recently, Tove Ditlevsen’s work was rediscovered after being more or less forgotten, or at least undervalued, in Denmark. Thanks to the persistent efforts of Danish author Olga Ravn, Ditlevsen’s books were translated, and as they received glowing reviews abroad, Danish readers and critics began to take a renewed interest, a trend that continues to grow.
On the other hand, the story is quite different for some of the children’s books, which have earned a reputation for pushing boundaries and addressing all aspects of the children’s lives. The books tackle difficult subjects such as suicide, divorce, abuse and other taboos. This bold approach to children’s literature builds on a strong Danish tradition of free speech, which can make translation challenging, as cultural differences may affect what is considered appropriate for children both in terms of both writing and illustration.
What are some recent challenges you have faced, advocating for your country’s literature and how has your institution adapted to meet these challenges?
The Danish tradition of authors having the freedom to write about anything often pushes boundaries abroad. This is a challenge we embrace at the Danish Arts Foundation, and we take pride in sharing our enthusiasm for works that address urgent and important themes, as they reflect human values that we need to discuss in today’s world.
Tell us about your proudest accomplishments as an institution in the past ten years. I’d be particularly interested to hear about any campaigns that your institution conceived to advocate for your country’s literature.
I am very proud of our Copenhagen Editors’ Fellowship, which we host annually leading up to the local Louisiana Literature Festival. The small fellowship group creates a unique environment where both experienced and aspiring editors can build international relationships and gain insights into Danish literature. As a result, we are seeing a growing number of highly qualified applications.
Most recently, we launched the Danish Lit Lounge, a communication initiative that brings together all our activities, from fellowships to book fair participations to translator webinars, as well as our Instagram channel and newsletter. Our impression is that it has fostered a stronger awareness of Danish literature among editors, translators and critics outside Denmark. We are fortunate that this effort coincides with the release of critically acclaimed new works, such as Solvej Balle’s septology On The Calculation of Volume.
In his Nobel Lecture, Kazuo Ishiguro exhorted us to “widen our common literary world to include many more voices from beyond our comfort zones of the elite first-world cultures. We must search more energetically to discover the gems from what remain today unknown literary cultures, whether the writers live in far away countries or within our own communities.” Yet, in one crucial respect, this ideal of an inclusive world literature shares the same problem as the climate crisis or even the COVID-19 vaccine crisis: countries that have the means to do something about a global situation often end up looking out for their own interests. How do you think institutional advocates of a country’s literature might be better allies for world literature, if they might even play a role at all?
In my opinion, collaboration and a generous approach to exchanging insights and perspectives are key. For example, the Nordic countries have strong collaboration through a formalized network where we share knowledge and tools, and support each other in advancing all our language areas. Regarding our own literary export activities, we prioritize visits to Denmark from fellows to foster strong relationships and deeper literary exchanges among editors and translators.
