Ukrainian poet Iryna Shuvalova wins Norway’s Ordknappen award

Ukrainian poet Iryna Shuvalova has received Norway’s Ordknappen 2026 award for her bilingual poetry collection “Ingen planer om å bli” (“Ne maiuchy namiru zostatysia” / “With No Intention of Staying”). The Ukrainian Literary Center reported the news to Chytomo.

The collection was created simultaneously in Ukrainian and Norwegian. It is the seventh title in Parallell, a series of bilingual poetry collections initiated by Stiftelsen LESE and published by the Norwegian publishing house Aschehoug.

Aschehoug published the book in fall 2025. Editors Hanna Bøvim-Bygge and Johanne Fronth-Nygren worked on the collection alongside poet Marte Huke and translator Iryna Sabor. The publication was illustrated by a Ukrainian artist working under the name Ave Libertatemaveamor.

The poems are expected to be published in Ukraine as part of Shuvalova’s forthcoming collection “Ya ne znaiu tsiiei movy” (“I Do Not Know This Language”). Safran Publishing plans to release the book with illustrations by Ukrainian artist Yuliia Tveritina.

The Ordknappen award ceremony took place during the Norwegian Literature Festival in Lillehammer. The 20th Ordknappen ceremony was held at Kulturhuset Banken on June 3, 2026. During the event, Shuvalova read poems from the collection in Ukrainian, while Trygve Ramnefjell read the Norwegian versions.

Presented by Stiftelsen LESE, the Ordknappen recognizes accessible, high-quality books intended to reach a broad range of readers, including people who face difficulties with reading. Shuvalova was among several writers, illustrators, and other book creators who received the award in 2026.

In its assessment, the Ordknappen committee noted how “landscapes, cities, animals, and plants come alive” throughout Shuvalova’s collection. It said that “the joy of seeing and experiencing the world appears alongside the melancholy associated with leaving places behind and moving forward”. The poems explore transience, love, and life through everyday imagery and experiences. The committee also highlighted the collection’s engagement with the experience of war, Slavic folk poetry, and myths familiar from classical antiquity.

According to the committee, Shuvalova made a valuable contribution to contemporary Norwegian literature through the innovative process of developing poetry in two languages simultaneously. “Ingen planer om å bli” is her first book published in Norwegian.

Shuvalova said that retaining the Ukrainian texts in the book was particularly important because it made the collection accessible to Ukrainian readers living in Norway. She also hopes the publication will be useful to Norwegian readers studying Ukrainian.

The poet taught Ukrainian at the University of Oslo from 2023 to 2025 and said that she observed steadily growing interest among students in studying the language. According to Shuvalova, cultural cooperation between Ukraine and Norway contributes to stronger relations between the two countries.

Iryna Shuvalova is a Ukrainian poet, translator, and scholar. She has published five poetry collections in Ukrainian, and her writing has been translated into more than 30 languages. She holds a doctorate in Ukrainian studies from the University of Cambridge and has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo.

Shuvalova has previously received honors from the Smoloskyp literary competition, the Blahovist Prize, the Oles Honchar Prize, and the UNESCO City of Literature Lviv Prize. Her collection “kaminsadlis” (“stoneorchardwoods”) was named poetry collection of the year by the Ukrainian literary publication LitAkcent.

As reported earlier, Shuvalova and literary translator Vitaly Chernetsky received the American Association for Ukrainian Studies Translation Prize in 2024 for their English translation of Ostap Slyvynsky’s poetry collection “The Winter King.” The jury praised the translation for combining interpretative accuracy with poetic virtuosity.

In June 2025, poems by Shuvalova were also included in “Este Mundo É um Vertep” (“This World Is a Vertep”), an anthology released by Portuguese publishing house não edições. The volume brought together 157 poems by 43 Ukrainian poets.