Winner of the 2025 Nordic Council Literature Prize

A young person who gradually disappears into an underworld, and a mother who tries to give form to grief. The work depicts a mother’s fear of losing her teenage son, who is growing up and going his own way – possibly astray. The poems revolve around questions such as: When is the son his own self and no longer hers? When is she her own self and not just a mother? When are you whole – and can you ever be? 

The work has a strong visual expression and works with several layers of meaning and materiality. The pages are decorated with collage, created by the author herself, which is composed of texts and images from other works. This use of fragments and visual elements underscores the fractured and searching nature of the mother’s experience – her attempts to find language for the unspeakable. Svørt Orkidé thereby puts into words the interplay between identity and praxis: Who is a mother when their child distances themselves? And who is the author when language falls silent? 

The work is part of a current wave of motherhood literature, which it both discusses and refers to. This literature creates a starting point for the work’s search for form and meaning in grief. At the same time, the collection of poems touches on topical issues of parenting in today’s society; on a system that is failing and young people who are increasingly having a bad time in life.

Vónbjørt Vang (born in 1974) is a prominent voice on the Faroese literary scene. Her first poetry collection, Millumlendingar was published in 2011, followed by Djúpini in 2017, neither of which have been translated into English. Her writing explores deep human relationships and how these are anchored in time and place. Together with Svørt Orkidé, she published Úr loggbókunum (2023) neither of which have been translated into English. In a personal, reflective, and poetic manner, they put into words the author’s writing process.