Writer, songwriter, musician, columnist, translator, and politician born in Uummannaq (Greenland) in 1952.
Juaaka Lyberth, also known as Karl Johan Juaaka Lyberth, was born on November 19th, 1952, in Uummannaq, in northern Greenland. The son of Frederik Issalik Lyberth and Louise Pollas, he was named after his great-grandfather and his great-uncle; his two names were condensed into “Juaaka” by the people of Uummannaq during his childhood.
Juaaka Lyberth’s childhood and formative years were split between Greenland and Denmark: after spending several years in Uummannaq, he studied for a year in Måløv, west of Copenhagen, before attending high school in Nuuk (Greenland), where he obtained his diploma in 1971. He then attended another high school in Båring, on Funen Island (Denmark). He later trained as a radio technician at the Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation (Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa; KNR). He moved up the corporate ladder between 1985 and 1995, before becoming a member of KNR’s board, a position he held from 2005 to 2008. Previously, in 1974, he returned to Denmark, moving to Grenaa, in Jutland, to take his university entrance exam: enrolled in the Inuit Cultures and Arctic Studies program at the University of Copenhagen between 1977 and 1984, he developed a deep interest in these topics. This interest led him, between 2014 and 2016, to write a master’s thesis on the resurgence of pre-Christian beliefs in present-day Greenland. These highly diversified years of academic and professional training attest to Juaaka Lyberth’s intellectual curiosity and versatility; his many professional and cultural pursuits are closely intertwined.
In parallel with his studies and his work at KNR, Juaaka Lyberth embarked on careers in music and, later, in theatre. In the 1970s, he founded the musical group Aasivik and performed numerous summer concerts in Greenland. He released several singles and albums combining Greenlandic oral traditions with the musical inspirations of his time, such as Kalaaleqatikka – mine frænder (1977), Oqaluttuat – fortællinger (1984), and Fam (1980), Greenland’s first music album for children. The 2010s saw a revival of Juaaka Lyberth’s musical activity: his album of love songs, Naasumik paju, was released in 2011 and, in 2013, “Sinigit meerannguaq,” a lullaby he originally wrote in 1974, was featured in Alfonso Cuarón’s film Gravity; this became a source of great pride for Greenlanders. Juaaka Lyberth’s songs are widely available on YouTube and on other streaming platforms. A lover of the performing arts, Juaaka Lyberth is equally committed to Greenlandic theatre: he was the producer of and sole actor in the musical drama Qasasip ullua kingulleq, directed by Indra Lorentzen and performed at the Katuaq Cultural Centre in Nuuk in 1999. He then chaired the board of the Greenland National Theatre (Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisarfia) between 2011 and 2015 and was co-director of NAIP, a Nuuk-based amateur theatre association, between 2011 and 2013. In 2017, he produced the play Qaammatip Ernera; it was directed by Jacques S. Matthiessen and perfomed at the Katuaq Cultural Centre.
An artist, Juaaka Lyberth has also been involved in local Greenlandic politics. He co-founded the Danish branch of the Greenlandic social-democratic party Siumut in 1979 and served as its secretary between 1981 and 1982. In 1983, he was an assistant to Finn Lynge, a Member of the European Parliament. From 1991 to 1995, he served as second deputy to the mayor of Nuuk and as member of the Greenlandic capital’s municipal council under the Siumut banner. In April 2021, he was elected to the municipal council of Sermersooq, a municipality of which his wife Asii Chemnitz Narup had been mayor from 2009 to 2019. At this stage, he had changed his party affiliation from Siumut to Inuit Ataqatigiit, a socialist party. His political involvement also encompasses the field of Greenlandic culture: from the 1990s to 2010, he took on numerous responsibilities at and served as cultural consultant for various organizations. Namely, he held several positions at the Katuaq Cultural Centre: he became secretary 1995, then events director in 1997, and finally director in 1999, a position he held until 2007. He served as head of the Taseralik Cultural Centre in Sisimiut (Greenland), between 2007 and 2010. As of 2024, he remains chair of the board of the Katuaq Cultural Centre. Juaaka Lyberth’s commitment to Greenlandic culture was recognized as early as 2000, when he was awarded the Greenlandic Culture Prize (Grønlandske Kulturpris) by the Greenlandic government.
Juaaka Lyberth is also a writer and staunch promoter of Greenlandic literature, culture, and language. Since the 1980s, he has been a regular contributor to Greenlandic newspapers such as Sermitsiaq and Atuagagdliutit/Grønlandsposten, where he has authored columns about local music and culture. In the 2010s, Juaaka Lyberth published two books, both with Milik Publishing in Nuuk: Naleqqusseruttortut: oqaluttualiaq (2012) and Orpilissat nunarsuarmi kusanarnersaat (2019). The first of these books won him the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2014, and was subsequently translated into Danish (Godt i vej, 2014) and English (On Their Way, 2018). In this novel, Juaaka Lyberth recounts the story of his generation, its curiosity, openness to outside cultural influences, and search for its own identity. His second book, a Christmas story, has so far only been translated into Danish (Det smukkeste juletræ i verden; literally: “The most beautiful Christmas tree in the world,” 2019); it was nominated for the West Nordic Council’s Children and Youth Literature Prize in 2020.
Juaaka Lyberth is well acquainted with his country’s history, which he has been documenting since the 1980s. He is the author of several biographies of illustrious Greenlandic figures such as Joas Andersen, a storyteller from Uummannaq (2013), and Simon Olsen, Greenland’s first industrialist (2020). Juaaka Lyberth has also worked extensively as a translator from Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) to Danish and vice versa, providing a bridge between the two cultures. His love for the Greenlandic language led him to serve on the Greenlandic Language Council (Oqaasiliortut), where he was charged with reviewing and approving new Greenlandic words and names. His expertise in Inuit studies enabled him to author scholarly works in fields which are dear to him. One of these texts, “Du tambour traditionnel au rock et à l’art contemporain” (literally: “From traditional drumming to rock and contemporary art”), is available to readers of French in the edited volume Le Groenland. Climat, écologie, société (literally: “Greenland: Climate, Ecology, Society”) published in 2016. In 2020, Juaaka Lyberth became vice-chair of the board of the Nordic Institute in Greenland (Nunani Avannarlerni Piorsarsimassutsikkut Attaveqaat; NAPA).
Juaaka Lyberth is a frequent international representative of the Greenlandic Writers’ Association (Kalaallit Atuakkiortut), which he has headed since 2015. It is in this role that he attended the Paris Book Fair in 2024 and signed an agreement with Daniel Chartier, director of the International Laboratory for Research on Images of the North, Winter and the Arctic, to promote Greenlandic literature.
Juaaka Lyberth currently lives in Nuuk with his wife, politician Asii Chemnitz Narup, with whom he adopted two children from South Korea, Kimmernaq Lyberth and Suluk Lyberth. The couple have two grandchildren.