
People make their way to the Handover ceremony in the Nordmarka forest just outside Oslo.

Canadian writer Margaret Atwood at the first Handover ceremony in 2015.

Artist Katie Paterson with English writer David Mitchell at the 2016 handover ceremony.

Katie Paterson and Icelandic writer and lyricist Sjón at the 2017 Handover ceremony.

Turkish-British writer Elif Shafak is the last author to have delivered a manuscript so far, in June 2018.

A detail of Sjón's manuscript, which is titled "As my brow brushes on the tunics of angels or the drop tower, the roller coaster, the whirling cups and other instruments of worship from the post-industrial age."

To clear the way for the 1,000 new saplings that will be used to print the books, older trees have been cut down and the wood will be used to line the room where the manuscripts will be kept.

One of the 1,000 spruce saplings currently growing in the forest. The project is managed by the Future Library Trust, chaired by Anne Beate Hovind.

"I use a lot of technology in my work, so this is not a criticism of digital books, but there is something so fundamental about the printed page," said Paterson.

The next Handover ceremony, when South Korean writer Han Kang will deliver her manuscript, is scheduled for May 25, 2019.


