Vónbjørt Vang nominated for the 2025 Nordic Council Literature Prize

The Nordic Council has just announced the nominees for the 2025 Nordic Council Literature Prize, and among the nominees is Vónbjørt Vang for her poetry collection Svørt orkidé. The poetry collection was published alongside the essay Úr loggbókunum.

In Svørt orkidé the poet describes a mother’s experience of having a son struggling and finding his path in life in poems, lyrical glimpses, essayistic parts, collages, flashbacks and diary excerpts with references and quotes from the history of literature.

The Nordic Council Literature Prize has been awarded every year since 1962 to a work written in a Nordic language of particularly high literary and artistic quality, and the prize is regarded as one of the most prestigious awards in the Nordic region.

In the Nordic Council’s rationale for Vónbjørt Vang’s nomination, they state:

Vang’s work operates on multiple levels of meaning and materiality, interweaving texts, images, and citations from other works into a collage-like form. The use of fragments and visual elements underscores the fractured and searching nature of the mother’s experience – her attempts to find language for the unspeakable. Thus, Svørt orkidé gives voice to the interplay between identity and practice: Who is the mother when the child distances themselves? And who is the author when language falls silent? 

Click here to read the full statement.

FarLit congratulates Vónbjørt Vang on her nomination!