About Sic Publishing
Sic Publishing is an independent publisher based in Lillehammer, Norway.
We work across literature, oral history, documentary projects, translation, and cultural expression, with a particular focus on voices shaped by exile, censorship, migration, political repression, and social change.
Our work brings together publishing, testimony, public discussion, translation, documentary practice, and long-form storytelling. Some projects take the form of books. Others develop through oral history, film, collaborative research, or public events. What connects them is a shared interest in human stories that challenge power, preserve memory, and widen public understanding across borders.
We are particularly interested in work emerging from communities and individuals whose experiences are often simplified, marginalised, or spoken about from a distance rather than in their own words.
Sic Publishing was founded from the belief that publishing can be more than distribution alone. It can also create space: for testimony, cultural exchange, public conversation, and the preservation of lived experience.
Current projects include:
- The Last Kiss — a bilingual Persian–English poetry collection by Mehdi Mousavi
- Documenting Gender Apartheid — an oral history and documentary initiative
- AES-451 — research and practical work focused on protecting writers in increasingly hostile digital environments
Publisher
Publisher · Sic Publishing AS
Oliver Vass
Oliver Vass founded Sic Publishing in Lillehammer, Norway, bringing together backgrounds in economics, international relations, publishing, communications, and global affairs.
Originally from the United Kingdom, he has lived and worked across multiple countries in Africa and South America before settling in Norway. His work focuses on human rights, freedom of expression, oral history, migration, and the role of storytelling in public understanding.
Through Sic Publishing, he develops collaborative publishing and documentary projects exploring exile, censorship, political repression, migration, and lived experience.
Collaborators
Sic Publishing works with writers, translators, editors, artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners across different projects. The people below are collaborators on current and recent Sic Publishing work.
Collaborator · Poet · Writer · Translator
Fatemeh Ekhtesari
Fatemeh Ekhtesari is an Iranian poet, writer, translator, and activist associated with the influential literary movement known as Postmodern Ghazal.
Her work explores themes including gender, sexuality, religion, censorship, exile, and women’s rights. Following imprisonment in Iran for her writing and activism, she later sought refuge in Norway through ICORN.
Alongside her own writing, she collaborates on translation, editorial work, and projects exploring freedom of expression and lived experience.
Collaborator · Poet · Writer · Editor
Samuel Tongue
Samuel Tongue is a Scottish poet, editor, and literary organiser whose work has appeared widely across journals, magazines, and public literary events.
He has published multiple poetry collections and previously served as poetry editor at the Glasgow Review of Books. He currently works with the Scottish Poetry Library and remains active in literary festivals, workshops, and collaborative cultural projects.
His work with Sic Publishing includes editing, literary development, and collaborative publishing projects crossing poetry, testimony, and translation.
Collaborator · Poet · Writer
Mehdi Mousavi
Mehdi Mousavi is an Iranian poet and writer widely associated with the contemporary development of Postmodern Ghazal poetry.
His writing combines classical Persian poetic traditions with modern political and social themes, exploring repression, exile, violence, intimacy, and everyday life under authoritarian systems.
Following imprisonment and sentencing in Iran for his literary work, he later escaped into exile and now continues writing and publishing internationally from Norway.
