Alumna Ida Lødemel Tvedt '17 wins the 2021 Hestenes Journalism Award

By
Nicole Saldarriaga
September 10, 2021

During last month's Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund, the 2021 Arne Hestenes Journalism Award was presented to Writing alumna Ida Lødemel Tvedt '17. The award—which was founded in 1993 by Dagbladet journalist Arne Hestenes in collaboration with the Norwegian International Film Festival Haugesund and Institute for Journalism—is awarded to journalists for outstanding work in cultural criticism.  

According to the jury for the prize, Tvedt was an obvious choice for this prestigious award because she has "a very special pen. A winding pen. Like a bejeweled cobra it coils around the journalistic material. Glistening, glittering, soft, and elegant. Before it strikes the skin, where it is at its thinnest, where it hurts the most."

The jury went on to say that Tvedt is "as rare as a culture critic of the good old sort. One who will not be limited to only writing about literature, music, or film. Even if she touches on these topics, she still sees culture in a bigger, interpersonal perspective. In her columns and essays she writes about how we talk and write, what we wear and what we do. She analyzes and dissects the culture that brings us together, tears us apart, and she does it with her unique western Norwegian eye for power structures." 

Tvedt was presented with a diploma and a monetary prize of 25,000 kroner. 

Ida Lødemel Tvedt is an essayist based in Oslo. She has an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University and has taught classes on the literary essay in the Columbia Undergraduate Writing Program. When she isn't working on longer texts, she writes for the newspaper Dag og Tid. Her next book is due to be published in Norway in the Spring.