Ottar Grepstad (born 1 October 1953) is a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

Nynorsk Nynorsk () () is one of the two 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 ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-Nor ...

writer. He was born in

Øyer Øyer is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Tingberg. The two largest villages in the municipality are Granrudmoe ...

. In the 1970s he was the leader of the

Young Liberals of Norway Young Liberals of Norway ( no, Unge Venstre) (NUV) is the youth league of the Norwegian political party Venstre. Young Liberals was founded on 27 January 1909, with Anders Kirkhusmo as the first leader. The current president is Sondre Hansmark, ...

for a period. From 1984 to 1988 he edited the periodical ''

Syn og Segn ''Syn og Segn'' is a Norwegian quarterly cultural and political periodical published in Oslo, Norway. History and profile ''Syn og Segn'' was founded in 1894, and Rasmus Flo and Arne Garborg were the first editors. The magazine is published in N ...

''. He worked in

Det Norske Samlaget Det Norske Samlaget is a Norwegian publishing house founded on 24 March 1868 with the aim to promote and publish books in Landsmål, now known as Nynorsk. ''Det Norske Samlaget'' is now divided into two institutions: a literature organization, ''L ...

for many years, and has been manager for

Noregs Mållag Noregs Mållag (literally "Language Organisation of Norway") is the main organisation for Norwegian Nynorsk (New Norwegian), one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language. In the Norwegian language conflict, it advocates the u ...

. In 1999 he became the leader of the

Ivar Aasen Centre Ivar (Old Norse ''Ívarr'') is a Scandinavian masculine given name. Another variant of the name is Iver, which is more common in Norway. The Old Norse name has several possible etymologies. In North Germanic phonology, several of the elements c ...

Ørsta is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Møre og Romsdal Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is part of the Sunnmøre Districts of Norway, region of Western Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Ørsta ( ...

. This centre is owned by ''Nynorsk kultursentrum''; which is led by Grepstad as well. From 1 January 2005 he has been a member of the

Arts Council Norway The Arts Council Norway ( no, Norsk kulturråd, often shortened to ''Kulturrådet'') is the official arts council for Norway. Based in Oslo, it is a Norwegian state institution created in 1965 as a result of a parliamentary decision in 1964. Art ...

, and from 2006 to 2010 he has been a board member of the

Norwegian Language Council The Language Council of Norway ( no, Språkrådet, ) is the consultative body of the Norwegian state on language issues. It was established in 2005 and replaced the Norwegian Language Council (, ) which existed from 1974 to 2005. It is a subsidiar ...

. He left the Arts Council in late 2009. In 1997 he released the book ''Det litterære skattkammer. Sakprosaens teori og retorikk'', which was claimed to be the "world's first theoretical book about

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

". In 1999 he was awarded the Norwegian Language Prize by the

. In 2006 he released ''Viljen til språk. Ei nynorsk kulturhistorie'' and in 2010 ''Avisene som utvida Noreg. Nynorskpressa 1850-2010''. Grepstad resides in

Volda Volda is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Sunnmøre region. The administrative centre is the village of Volda. Other villages in the municipality include Dravlaus, Fyrde, Straumshamn, Leira, Bjørke, and Gro ...

References

1953 births Living people Norwegian magazine editors Norwegian non-fiction writers Nynorsk-language writers People from Øyer People from Volda {{Norway-writer-stub