Brage Prize Presented By Princess Mette-Marit To Elisabeth Aasen

Self-confessed book lover Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway was on hand this evening to present the country’s highest literature prize, the Brage Prize, during a ceremony at Oslo’s Dance House.

The honorary award for 2016 went to Elisabeth Aasen in recognition of her four-decade-long project to “find the women literary history forgot.” She has written a number of biographies on Norwegian female writers, as well as other non-fiction books.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit, wearing a simple white dress, spoke of Ms Aasen’s early struggles at the beginning of her career: “When this year’s laureate joined the teaching profession in the 1970s, the curriculum consisted mostly of literature by male Norwegian authors. And through school textbooks, it was easy to get the impression that there had not existed other female writers apart from ‘The Big Four’ – Amalie Skram, Camilla Collette, Cora Sandel and Sigrid Undset.

“Traditional academic sources were virtually nonexistence, and the laureate was forced to travel the country’s antique shops in search of historic female writers,” Mette-Marit said, calling Ms Aasen’s work “faithful and determined”.

The Brage Prize is presented annually by the Norwegian Book Prize Foundation.

Filed under Norway
Tagged Awards, Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, Literature.