Why literary giants like Margaret Atwood, Nobel laureate Han Kang and Amitav Ghosh wrote books that will never be read in their lifetime

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Today on Big Ideas, what a wonderful big idea this is. A library grown from a forest filled with books from the world's greatest authors, written for readers yet to be born. Welcome to Norway's Future Library.

Anne Beate Hovind (1:04)

It's not about instant gratification. It's about actually waiting, waiting in patience and leaving something for the next generation. And I think that most people today are longing for that. I think that's why it resonates with people all over the world that we share that is about being a human being, you know.

Claire Nicholls (1:26)

With Big Thinkers at the best live events on ABC Radio National, I'm Claire Nicholls, sitting in for Natasha Mitchell while she takes a break. And since it began in 2014, the art project Future Library has commissioned works from Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, the Icelandic poet Shone, Nobel laureate Han Kang, and in June this year, Native American author Tommy Orange and Indian author Amitav Ghosh. They've all written manuscripts that will never be seen in their lifetimes. They'll be printed on paper from a spruce forest of 1,000 trees growing just outside of Oslo.

So just what is going on here? And how does it work? Well, Anne Beate Hovind is the Norwegian curator and cultural producer managing The Future Library project. Today on Big Ideas, she joins a very engaged audience at the National Library of Australia on Ngunnawal and Nambri country in Canberra, with the library's director of community engagement, Kathryn Favelle.

Let's start with a taste of the story behind The Future Library, featuring its creator, the Scottish artist Kate Paterson and Margaret Atwood, the first author to participate.

Katie Paterson (2:47)

In the forest, there is a city, and in the city, there is a library. The Future Library.

The Future Library is an artwork that is going to unfold over a hundred years, where each year from 2014, a writer is commissioned to write any piece, non-fiction, fiction, poetry, in any number of words, and it will not be read until 2114, when the books are printed from the pulp of the trees being grown in the forest. These trees that in time will be used to print these a hundred texts. What a wild idea you had here, Katie Paterson.

Margaret Atwood (3:35)

When you plant trees, you're aware that it's something that's good to, to outlive you.

And this art piece is really about an unborn generation and trying to make a place for them. Besides Margaret Atwood, for the past ten years, you and many other international and celebrated writers agreed to participate in my wild idea.

Katie Paterson (3:57)

This is a letter to the future. We assume that people will still be around, that they will be able to read, that they will still be interested in reading, that there will still be a library.

So this is a project that is immersed in hope and a cosmic sense of time. Think of this as cultural storage for the future.

Margaret Atwood (4:23)

That books are trees and libraries are forests.

Katie Paterson (4:27)

And that this future could be beautiful.

Kathryn Favelle (4:32)

And isn't that a beautiful way to begin our introduction to The Future Library project? I'm Kathryn Favelle and welcome Anne Beate to Canberra and to the National Library of Australia.

Anne Beate Hovind (4:44)

Thank you.

Kathryn Favelle (4:45)

Both Katie Paterson, the artist and Margaret Atwood refer to the project as a wild idea.

And 12 years in, I think it's still a wild idea. I may have described it as a little bit bonkers to some people as I've been introducing them to it. But could you take us back to the very beginning of the project and tell us how it was conceived and how you managed to get people to say yes to it?

Anne Beate Hovind (5:12)

It's a long story and I can't tell all the sequence.

Kathryn Favelle (5:16)

Well, you can. It's a quiet space. We won't tell you.

Anne Beate Hovind (5:21)

So I work in the construction business, believe it or not. So I've been working with the waterfront development in Oslo for many years and so I work for the property developers. And part of the infrastructure that we built in a new transformation of a city in the waterfront are the public spaces. And with public spaces, there comes art.