Vigdis Hjorth has for years and years been a frontrunner when it comes to writing uncompromising literature. This year is so far looking to be the year when she is finally having her great international break-through, as the rights to the novel Wills and Testaments is being sold to number of new countries – and she will hopefully also receive the Nordic Councils Literature Prize later this year.

This novel is just the last in a long line of books that she has written, many of which take on the theme of being a woman and an artist.

Selma Lønning Aarø has as well as being an author also been a columnist for many years, writing hilarious texts about being a mother, wife and friend. With her novel I´m Coming!, she dove head first into the expectations about having a perfect sex life as well as having a perfect home and career. Ultimately funny in parts, deeply tragic in others, the book is a great document of being a woman in our time. With her latest novel, Her lying face, she tells the tale of a woman who wants nothing but to write, but is trapped in the expectations of her time – late 19th Century, and get caught up in an obsession for the writer Knut Hamsun.

Tiril Broch Aakre is in many ways a new literary voice, yet she has been working as an editor for several great Norwegian contemporary writers. Her first novel, Save the Children, received great acknowledgement and reviews, and landed her the Bjørnson Prize in 2015. A down to earth - yet complex - novel about one day in the life of a wife and mother. With Fjällräven Yellow, she has taken on the inner life of a young boy trying to get on with his life after a bad accident has taken place. Her texts are filled with nerve, sometimes almost electric at the touch. And finishing a book by her always leaves you wanting more. Luckily she is writing more as we speak.

Siri M. Kvamme is a productive storyteller, with a psychological touch to most of her writing. What lures in the background or in the thoughts of the people around you, and what happens if you are suddenly loosing your eyesight – what would matter the most, and what would you do? In her latest novel The World Plays Hide and Seek, this is the case. It is about being a young woman wanting to write, and loosing your vision of the world around you. Her distinctive writing is always a joy, and you might be left with some new thoughts about life?

Ellisiv Lindkvist is an outspokenly feministic writer, and with her latest novel Self-Centered she dives straight into investigating differences between female and male writers, as her female protagonist get tangled up in a love triangle during a writers retreat.

Already with her debut Everything I write is true, she got into the issues about being a girl, becoming a woman and what that means in our world today. What can a girl write? And can a woman find a role that is just as important as becoming a mother? Unafraid and observing, the comments of Lindkvist are always well thought and to the point. And in her next project she will take on “the Culture Man” that has been so debated in Scandinavia of lately. We can´t wait!

Linn Strømsborg, being a young woman – or person, if you will – of today, gets into the theme – inner and outer – of standing on the verge of adulthood. To old to be a kid, to young to feel adult. The twenties is a rollercoaster ride for sure. Very recognizable from TV-series like NRK series SKAM and The Young and Hopeful, the writing of Strømsborg show us the life of young Scandinavian people today, and new issues that they deal with.

Her main protagonist Eva is in both Furuset and You´e not gonna die going through the motions. In a world where your friends can be more important to you than your family, and a good song can make you cry for hours, and where you all of a sudden may feel unable to leave your apartment. Hopefully there will be much more to come from this talented young writer!

- Anette Slettbakk Garpestad