13 authors from the Nordic countries have been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize and from Greenland it is Debora H. Kleist who has the chance to receive a prize of 300,000 kroner.
In the description of the novel Sarsuatitat from 2024, the prize committee writes that the Greenlandic author has "created a literary work of high artistic quality, which with linguistic precision and poetic strength examines humanity's connection with nature, time and community".
- Through a sensual and rhythmic language, Kleist manages to portray life as a continuous movement – a stream where individual experiences, collective stories and the voices of generations flow together. The text balances between the intimate and the universal, and makes room for both silence and intensity. This linguistic openness invites the reader to reflect and recognize without fixing the meaning, the review says.
This is Debora H. Kleist's debut novel. She previously wrote a short story, Olieeventyret, which was published in 2015 and was included in a short story collection that was designated as a White Raven book in 2016.
Debora H. Kleist, a geologist by training, was born in Qaqortoq in 1989.
The final winner of the Literature Prize will be announced on 20 October, and the actual prize statuette will be presented at the Nordic Council session in Helsinki on 27 October.
