Johannes Gjerdåker (15 February 1936 – 27 April 2020) was a Norwegian local historian, poet, translator, non-fiction writer and publisher. Gjerdåker was born in

Voss Voss () is a Municipalities of Norway, municipality and a Districts of Norway, traditional district in Vestland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Vossevangen. Other villages inclu ...

, and studied history and language at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

. He made his literary debut in 1978 with the poetry collection . He wrote several works on local history of Voss and

Hordaland Hordaland () was a county in Norway, bordering Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Telemark, and Rogaland counties. Hordaland was the third largest county, after Akershus and Oslo, by population. The county government was the Hordaland County Munici ...

. In 1992 he was awarded the cultural prize from the municipality of Voss. He received the Bastian Prize in 1997 and the Melsom Prize in 1999, both for translation of works by

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...

into

Nynorsk Nynorsk (; ) is one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language (''Landsmål''), parallel to the Da ...

. In 2005 he received the Critics Prize for the year's best work of translation, for translation of works by

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...

. He died in April 2020.

References

1936 births 2020 deaths People from Voss University of Oslo alumni 20th-century Norwegian historians Norwegian translators Norwegian non-fiction writers 20th-century Norwegian poets Nynorsk-language writers Norwegian male poets 20th-century Norwegian male writers Norwegian male non-fiction writers {{Norway-writer-stub