Among 13 works, Karline Nathansen and Pernille Kreutzmann-Larsen have been nominated for the Nordic Council’s children’s and youth literature prize for the picture book Naja afferlu.
A poetic and sensual picture bookwhich gives a clear voice to an Arctic way of understanding the world, is the opening statement when the Nordic Council presents one of the nominated books for the 2026 children’s and youth literature prize.
– Naja afferlu is a poetic, visually enchanting story, which gives Greenland a clear and distinctive voice in Arctic children’s literature – and thus also in the Nordic literary conversation. At a time when the Arctic is often mentioned in a context of strategic interests and global power relations, the book reminds us of something more fundamental, which is that the Arctic is first and foremost a living landscape. A place where people, animals and nature enter into deep and mutual relationships, and where stories are a way of understanding the world.
First children’s book
It is Karline Nathansen’s first children’s book, published last year, which excites the prize committee. She was born in 1979 and is from Paamiut, where she grew up with her four siblings with nature close by. Has an education in sports and event management and is an authorized interpreter and translator in Greenlandic and Danish within the health field.
Today she lives in Randers, where she works both as an interpreter for Greenlandic citizens and at the reception at the Randers Art Museum.
Pernille Kreutzmann-Larsen, who has illustrated the book, “is decisive for the book’s artistic strength”, it says.
– In a lively watercolor style, she creates an image universe where light, colors and movement give the story an almost dream-like character. The deep sea, the arctic landscapes and the meeting between children and animals are shown in images which are both detailed and open to the reader’s own imagination, says the presentation of the nominated picture book.
The predilection
Pernille Kreutzmann-Larsen, who was born in 1987 and from Sisimiut, already had a fondness for singing, drawing, painting, story-writing, songwriting and needlework as a child. And it is not the first time that she has experienced being nominated.
– The interest in history has always been an important part of her life, and she is also educated in cultural and social history from the University of Greenland. In the music world, she is known as a singer and songwriter in the band TIU. Since 2017, Pernille Kreutzmann-Larsen has illustrated a number of books, including Tuttuarannguaq (“The Reindeer Cub”) by Camilla Sommer, which was nominated for the Nordic Council’s children’s and youth literature prize in 2019. Today, she works independently in art and music, and she also runs the publishing house Masaatsiaq, it is reported.
Karline and Pernille’s ability to deliver an interplay between text and images has excited the Nordic Council, because the book is a “complete picture book, where the visual and linguistic layers lift each other and create a unified artistic expression”.
About the story
The book’s narrative itself is built around Naja and her close relationship with her grandmother. The Nordic Council presents it as follows:
– In their togetherness, a space opens up where fantasy and reality flow together. When Naja meets the whale and is taken on a dream-like journey through the world of the sea, the reader enters a universe where nature does not just act as a backdrop, but as a living co-player. The sea, the animals and the landscape appear as part of a relational community, where man does not stand outside nature, but is woven together with it.
– This worldview is closely connected with the Arctic and indigenous form of knowledge, where land, sea and life are perceived as mutually connected. In Naja arferlu, this perspective is conveyed with a rare ease through the child’s gaze. Naja’s encounter with the whale thus becomes not just an imaginative adventure, but a poetic experience of being in relation to the surrounding world – a world where nature has its own presence and its own dignity.
The award ceremony
The two nominees can be happy about the nomination, but must be patient as to whether they win the award, which will only be revealed at the Nordic Council session in Helsinki on 27 October.
At a special award ceremony, the winner will receive an award statuette “Nordlys” and receive 300,000 kroner.
Karline and Pernille are up against 12 other nominees from Sweden, Norway, the Sami language area, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Finland and Denmark.
