Our vision for Bogforum

They tell us that we look after ourselves first. One by one, and all for none. That the world is on fire, and that what was once set in stone is now exploding into atoms before our eyes. And within us. Climate crisis. War. Economic collapse just around the corner. It is all there in your news, on your phone, in your feed. Flashing from yellow banners and red alerts around the clock, shredding our attention in blue light. No wonder unrest so easily grows wings and flutters about like a moth drawn to a light.

But there is an antidote. One that gathers the scattered fragments and lifts human experience into new wholes, demanding the depth we so badly need when we tremble restlessly on the surface of a hurried and polished existence. An antidote that, although constantly taking on new forms of expression, is as old as time itself. Literature. Reading. A private act that nevertheless calls for strong connection. Through books, we see one another and ourselves. We gain insight, perspective and immersion. We love, fear, wonder and grow, and we are given something to talk about. Through literature, we become wiser about who we are, past and present, and about the world around us and between us. Together and alone.

This is a community. Admittedly, a word worn thin by political rhetoric, personal agendas and the most aggressive kinds of salesmanship. Yet community has been, is and will remain the core of Bogforum. Our shared community around books. This is where we all meet. Physically. Not in niches. Not with an eye on what is small or what is grand. Not with prescriptions for good taste. Everyone should be free to find their own personal answer, whether in the furthest corners of the halls or on the largest stages at Bella Center. Made in Denmark or brought in from far away. Academic. Fictional. Poetic. Graphic. Perhaps all at once.

Bogforum exists for readers, authors, publishers and mediators. For lovers of literature of every background and with every prerequisite, or none at all. At school, we were taught that if you try to reach everyone, you reach no one. We call bluff. It is precisely in the meeting between the narrow and the broad, the unfamiliar and the well known, the commercial and the artistic, the physical and the digital, debutants and mastodons, emerging voices and established stars, that our community truly comes alive. This is where you can feel the pulse of an industry so often declared dead, yet forever finding new life.