Anna-Kaisa Räisänen

Lecture on the 5th floor at The Hamsun Centre , Wednesday, August 5

Linguist and children's book author

Anna-Kaisa Schultz-Räisänen has worked with the Kven language, literature and culture since 2006, both as a researcher, professional and language revitaliser. She has particularly worked with linguistic diversity, minority languages, endangered languages ​​and language revitalisation. As a subject manager at the Kven Institute, she has led a number of language and culture projects since 2015, and from 2019 to 2023 she was an investigator in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Today, she is involved in the work of investigating a national competence centre for Norwegianisation policy and injustice, and she is a member of the Council of Europe's Committee of Experts for the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

She debuted as a children's author in 2019 and has since published three children's books. She also translates fiction and stage texts from Norwegian to Kven, and writes song lyrics in Kven. In her work, she explores how literature, language and culture can contribute to highlighting minority languages ​​and creating greater understanding of linguistic diversity.

Photo: Pål Vegard Eriksen