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Ukrainian poet, translator, and scholar Iryna Shuvalova has been awarded the 2026 Ordknappen Literary Prize from Norway for her book ‘Ingen planer om å bli’. This was announced on the Ukrainian Book Institute’s official Instagram page.
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The award ceremony took place during the Norwegian Literary Festival in Lillehammer, where the author represented Ukraine. The award jury specifically praised the poet’s craftsmanship, noting that in the collection, “landscapes, cities, and the animal and plant worlds come to life for readers, and the joy of seeing and understanding goes hand in hand with a longing for what lies behind.”
The award-winning book was published in the fall of 2025 by Aschehoug, one of Norway’s largest publishing houses. The edition is bilingual and combines the original texts in Ukrainian with translations into Norwegian. A team of experts worked on the book, including editors Hanna Bovim-Bygge and Johanne Front-Nigren, as well as translators – poet Marte Gyke and Iryna Sabor. In Ukraine, the poems from this collection will be published for the first time by the publishing house “Safran.” They will be included in Iryna Shuvalova’s upcoming book, *I Don’t Know This Language*.
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Iryna Shuvalova is a Ukrainian poet, translator, and scholar, and the author of the poetry collections ‘Ran’, ‘Os’, ‘Az’, ‘Stone Garden’, and ‘Final Songs’. Her works have been translated into more than thirty languages, and she regularly represents Ukrainian literature at international festivals and cultural events.
In addition, she earned a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Her research focuses on Ukrainian literature, particularly songs and poetry that emerged in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Iryna also lived and worked in Nanjing for several years, where she was involved in literature, translation, and cultural research, and actively participated in Ukrainian-Chinese cultural projects.
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Ordknappen is a Norwegian literary prize that the organization Leser søker bok has awarded annually since 2006. It honors writers, illustrators, translators, and comic book authors whose books are inclusive and designed to be accessible to the widest possible audience, including people who have difficulty comprehending standard texts. The award recognizes literary excellence and affirms that the winners create high-quality works accessible to all types of readers.