Kristenn Einarsson, left, speaks on democracy and reading at the 2024 International Publishers Congress in Guadalajara, with Mija Kovač, an author of the Ljubljana Manifesto, looking on. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘Give the Readers What They Didn’t Know They Wanted’
It will seem odd at first. So central a personality has Kristenn Einarsson been to the International Publishers Association, to its leading-edge Freedom to Publish committee and its Prix Voltaire, to Norway’s stance as a nation of enthusiasts in reading and literature, that “stepping aside” doesn’t at first make much sense for this guy—at least to the rest of us.
The Iceland-born Einarsson has crafted one of those careers that seems to keep blossoming, and yet, he’s going to hold on to one major project as he reaches the end of his IPA term on January 1: The burgeoning new Democracies Depend on Reading program.
What started as a program engaging five European universities from nine countries in its sphere now has 10 universities. Called “Dem-Read” for short, it’s the purposeful development of a curriculum for pre-college-age students that uses data-based developments to connect the importance of long-form “immersive” reading as a direct key to the longevity and health of democracy.
“We can learn from research,” he says, “and the researchers can get help to set up the activities that they want to study and follow. Together, we can work on the hypothesis, how to attack it. I really like that. It’s stimulating and fascinating. I think it’s going to work.” So do his core associates—all well known at Frankfurt—Luis González (Spain), Miha Kovač (Slovenia), Christophe Blasi (Germany), and Norway’s educational apparatus, especially in reading-wise Lillehammer, is watching with keen interest.
How do you get a career that lets you “step away” into a dream project of this kind?
In publishing, Einarsson was CEO of the Norwegian Publishers Association for almost a decade (2011 to 2020); CEO of the Norwegian Book Clubs program (1991 to 2010); chairman of Kunnskapsforlaget Publishing house (2000 to 2008) and then its managing director from 2008 to 2010). He has also been president of the Bjørnson Academy, the Norwegian Academy for Literature and Freedom of Expression, chair of the Norwegian Film Fund (2001 to 2007), chair of the Norwegian Film Institute (2008 to 2012) and a board member of NORLA, the Norwegian Literature Abroad program, from 2018 to 2020.
“On the ‘Democracies Depend on Reading’ program he’s prioritizing now, Kristen Einarsson says, ”It’s stimulating and fascinating. I think it’s going to work.”
What’s striking about such a raft of accomplishment is for the last eight years, Einarsson has been the Freedom to Publish voice and face of the IPA as chair of the Freedom to Publish committee. In fact, for anyone who has come into the world publishing business in the last decade, this is the reason the name Kristenn Einarsson stands out.
Each time a publisher was thrown into jail somewhere, each time a government threatened a small press, each time a valued colleague in the world book business was disappeared or detained—or worse—it has been Einarsson’s remarkably economical condemnation that followed, the damning, cold wisdom of compassion and morality breaking through in one after the next media message from IPA’s Geneva offices.
With James Taylor directing the Freedom to Publish committee’s growingly influential Prix Voltaire and Einarsson’s guidance, the trademark, if you will, was remarkable. Einarsson has spoken to presidents and royalty, prime ministers and unabashed dictators with the same icy insight—the ability to reveal the illogic of censorship in a phrase or two.
For the most part, he tells Publishing Perspectives, the powerful have remained silent. Effective communication does that to bullies.
‘The Guy Who Hired Me the First Time’
It was a happy surprise when in 2021 Einarsson established the World Expression Forum, WEXFO, in Lillehammer and immediately started booking Nobel Peace Prize laureates and thinkers of enormous stature for its annual program in the late spring.
Immediately developing a major component of youth training as a lynchpin of the WEXFO ethos, he grew the event of the program in just four years to such statue that his successor as managing director there will be Ingunn Trosholman, who will leave the state secretary position in the Norwegian prime minister’s office to take the watch from Einarsson on January 1.
Having the Norwegian system’s support behind him has been huge in all this success, Einarsson agrees, “but also we decided to go to Lillehammer,” where he has found such an energetic uptake that he has established a corps of young experts—70 people from 50 nations—to grow their own organization.
When he looks back at a 50-year career, especially one imbued with the grace of the diplomacy and educational efficacy he has developed, the source of one of his most prized bits of advice might surprise you. It came from “the guy who hired me the first time” in what was a booming business in book clubs at the time. The clubs were selling some 40 percent of all fiction being bought in Norway.
“He wanted to talk to me,” Einarsson says, about how so much success was at that time being commandeered by the clubs.
“And what he told me was: ‘We shall give the readers what they want—and we shall give the readers what they didn’t know they wanted.”
Translated into Einarsson’s special Norwegian, this means that the Freedom to Publish committee has to speak to power. It means that WEXFO must embrace the young people who can carry its concerns forward. And it means that “Dem-Reading” may be the way that cultures can generate the literate intelligence to sustain the democracy now threatened in so many places.
When you see Einarsson at Frankfurt this week, thank him for giving the industry some things it may not have known it wanted.
More from Publishing Perspectives on issues of the freedom to publish, the freedom to read and the freedom of expression is here, more on the Prix Voltaire is here, and more on the International Publishers Association is here. More on the World Expression Forum, WEXFO, is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the world media partner of the International Publishers Association.
More on Frankfurter Buchmesse, its events and people, is here.
A version of this story originally appeared in our Publishing Perspectives 2025 Show Magazine. If you can’t be with us at Frankfurter Buchmesse this year, be sure to download our PDF of the full magazine here.
Wherever our international readers are in the world, they use our free daily email to be sure they don’t miss any news. Sign up now.