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Harald Oddvar Lindbach (17 August 1941 - 18 October 2020) was an author and translator who wrote in and about the Sámi languages.

Personal life
Harald Oddvar Lindbach was born on 17 August 1941 in Romedal in Stange municipality, Norway, to parents Harald Lindbach and Jenny Wold. He had three siblings. His father died in 1963 and his mother in 1979. Lindbach married fellow student of theology Eva Elisabeth Jørgensen in 1964. He graduated from the University of Oslo with a degree in theology in 1967. In 1989, Lindbach received a cheque of 3,000 or 30,000 kr for designing the coat of arms of Kåfjord municipality. By 1990, Harald and Eva Elisabeth had had 3 children together.

Church service
In December 1968, Lindbach was ordained a priest by Fridtjov Søiland Birkeli in Oslo Cathedral. In 1969, Lindbach was sent to Skjervøy Church within the Diocese of Nord-Hålogaland to serve as resident curate. Lindbach was one of two candidates that sought the position of parish pastor for Kvænangen in May 1972. At a council of state in June, he was appointed as the parish's new head. Two years later, the council of state announced that he had been appointed as pastor for Kautokeino Church. Lindbach signed up as a candidate for the empty position of pastor in the Lyngen Church parish in July 1977. In October, he became resident curate in Lyngen. The next year, Kåfjord Church was split from Lyngen and Lindbach took on the position as priest. This would remain his place of employment until 1987 when he resigned. By 1989, Lindbach was still living in Kåfjord, a few metres from the border to Nordreisa municipality to the east. Because of years of exposure to Sámi culture, he learned to speak the Northern Sámi language fluently.

Move to Hamarøy
In 1991, Harald and his new wife Kristin moved to Skilvassbakk in Hamarøy where they became smallholders after taking over a 90 year old farm. When they married, Kristin already had two children. In Hamarøy he also learned to speak Lule Sámi. He lived there until 2015, when he moved back to Kvænangen. By 1994, the two had sheep, chickens, geese and a horse. They wanted to farm in a traditional manner, which entailed using natural fertiliser, ploughs, and traditional tools, many of which Harald had made himself. In contrast to contemporary farming methods, he did not want his work to take up a lot of area or use much fuel for energy because he wanted to "be able to look poor people around the world in the eye". Kristin stated that the amount of work was a positive, as it did not create an "artificial divide between work and leasure". Harald said that they "were probably a bunch of weirdos", before he asked the question: "Isn't it weirder that people are moving away from rural areas to the city?". The newspaper Nordlandsposten wrote that both of them were part of the national organisation Arbeidshesten ("The work horse").

Harald and Kristin's children, Kristmar and Hans Ole, were declared as Sámi by the Ministry of Church Affairs, Education and Research in 2001, despite neither of their parents being Sámi themselves. They received this right because the family spoke Northern and Lule Sámi at home. They therefore had the right to receive Sámi-language education in their municipality. Because Hamarøy did not have the the funds or material necessary for such education, they were sent to the neighbouring municipality of Tysfjord. Kristin's two older children had received Sámi education because their father was Sámi, so she also wanted their youngest to receive it as well. Hamarøy politicians had previously denied their requests to change schools, citing funding issues. When questioned about the reason, Mayor of Hamarøy, May Valle, stated that she considered it a luxury to spend so much money on two students. She also denied any accusations of trying to thwart Sámi culture or identity in the municipality. The Sámi Parliament asked them to reconsider their decision, recommending the municipality to seek monetary support from higher authorities. They stated that they would assist the municipality in finding a solution. After the Ministry of Church Affairs, Education and Research had decided that 34,000 kr should be set aside for each child, Hamarøy asked for assistance from Tysfjord in providing the service. By November, Tysfjord had agreed to the proposition. Kristmar and Hans Ole had already started schooling in Tysfjord in August, despite the formalities not being settled yet.

Articles
Lindbach authored the article "Fra samenes gamle tro til læstadianismen og kirkeliv" for the 1979 book Finnmark, which was part of the book series Bygd og by i Norge. In the article, he wrote about religion and church history in Finnmark. His article "The Drum, the shaman and the world: shamanism in the north" was included in the 1995 book The Barents Region. It focused on shamanism being a common cultural trait between Circumpolar peoples, with particular emphasis on the Sámi.

In 2000, Lindbach wrote the article "Ved erfaringens port - Tiden fram mot den store vekkelsen" for the journal Bårjås, which was published by Árran. The issue was dedicated to Lars Levi Laestadius, being released 200 years after his birth. In the article, he wrote about Laestadius' adolescence and the preexisting conditions that lead to Laestadianism becoming prevalent. He also described the cultural movement it created in Sámi populations, drawing comparisons between it and the movement of the Quakers. Lindbach wrote another article for the journal in 2006, in which he discussed "catching" the language, showcasing examples of poetry from both the north and the south in addition to opinions from teenagers. It was titled "Nuoraj guhkes ájádusá". He provided the article "Noen skikker ved dødsfall og begravelse" for the 2010 release of Bårjås, in which he wrote about customs surrounding death and funerals. The article was based considerably on interviews that were part of the project "From Cradle to Grave". He returned in 2014 with the article "Noen gamle samiske ukenavn". In it, he wrote about the names of weeks in Sámi languages, and the traditions associated with them.

Books
Lindbach released the text book Gáttiin ja meara nalde in 1995 through publisher Iđut. It featured material written in the coastal dialects of Northern Sámi from Northern Troms, the first of its kind written in over 90 years. He wrote the manuscript of the book while he was living in Nordreisa, but released it after he had moved to Hamar. After Sámi-language education started in the 1980s, there was a lack of teaching material, which forced teachers to create their own; much of the material in the book includes material from Lindbach's own teaching. While the goal of the book was primarily educational, Lindbach also wished for it to increase the prestige of the dialects compared to the ones from Kautokeino and Karasjok. He wanted the book to interest secondary school students to study the language, even if they had no prior experience with it before. The book was inspired by his experience of trying to teach students with coastal dialects the standardised written language, which did not match the way they spoke. It was written with the feedback of his students; everyday Sámi vocabulary common to the coastal dialects were gathered from them and their parents. Lindbach described the other Sámi-language text books as being about life on Finnmarksvidda further inland, which was unfamiliar to his students' daily lives. Beside providing "broad and rich" content and writing excercises, the book also contained bibliographies of various Sámi-language authors. The back of the book had a grammar explaining everything written in the book. It was illustrated by Bodil Hagbrink, and received funding from the Sámi Educational Council.

Lindbach wrote a book for primary school education intended for children with Northern Sámi as a first language, AÁBC, which was bundled with the workbook AÁBC-bargogirji. They were illustrated by Kristin Skaar and Bjørn With, who also lived in Hamarøy; while Lindbach and his publisher had to "cross the creek" to find illustrators for his previous books, in Hamarøy, they could be found "just a few hundred meters away". With drew the illustrations and Skaar provided coloring work. Additional help with rhymes was provided by Ardis Ronte Eriksen. The books were released through the publisher Iđut in 1997. By February 1998, several schools in Sámi-speaking areas had already implented its use, with plans for further implementation in public use planned for the start of the school year in August. Another book in the series, AÁBC bustávvagirji was released in 1999. The first book received a reprint in July 2010. The following month, Iđut released two books in the AÁBC series translated into Lule and Southern Sámi. They also released three educational games, one of which was AÁBC-speallu.

In 1999, Lindbach released several books through Iđut: the grammar booklet Nordsamisk minigrammatikk, which included information on nominal inflections, verb conjugations, and derivational morphology. Parts of it were taken from his previous book, Gáttiin ja meara nalde. It received reprints in 2010 and 2016. He also released the children's book Beagabega ja Biera that year. The book's illustrations were provided by Bjørn With and Kristine Skaar. It was translated into Lule Sámi in 2001 by Lill-Tove Paulsen. It was nominated for the Saami Council Literature Prize in 2002. In 2004, he was one of thirteen members on the jury to select the winner of that year's Nordic Council Literature Prize, representing the Sámi language area. The same year he was part of the committee to select the recipients of the Sámi Parliament's Artist Stipend.

Lindbach wrote two primary school text books in 2011, Logan fal and Logan vel eambbo, for the third and fourth grades, respectively. Both were released alongside work books. They were written for students with Northern Sámi as a native language, and were meant to be used for multiple subjects, containing calculus, English vocabulary, and phonetics, among other things. On one of the last pages, there was a conversation between two girls speaking to each other in Northern and Lule Sámi. Lindbach had no plans to create translations of the books into Lule Sámi.

In 2013, Lindbach wrote the first original comic book in Lule Sámi, Rosita, with illustrations by Bjørn With. It was published by Iđut, with funding from the Sámi Parliament of Norway. Telling the story of the horse Rosita on a journey through Sápmi and its nature over forty pages, the comic got its inspiration from Lindbach's own experience on a class trip when he was a teacher; in 1999, he took his horse on a week-long mountain hike with the school in Musken, during which he got the idea to write about the experience. The story was based on local history in Northern Salten, with Illustrator Bjørn With stating that the story was based on a real trek someone made from Hellmobotn in Tysfjord municipality to the Swedish border, with some embellishments for the story's sake. The horse was based on LindBach's own horse, Rosita. Lindbach and With had worked together for years, but this was the first time that With would draw more than one or two illustrations per page. He stated that he took around 4 days per page, finishing his work on the book in around a year. With stated that his arm had become inflamed due to the amount of work. A follow-up, Rosita ådå vásádusáj, was released in 2017. The stories in the book were likewise based on real events, and took place in the Autumn and Winter. The text was originally written in Norwegian by Lindbach before being translated by Marita Elise Turi to Lule Sámi. Illustrations were provided by Sissel Horndal.

Translations
Min bok om samene, Lindbach's translation of Johan Turi's seminal work Muittalus samid birra into Norwegian, was published by ČálliidLágádus in 2011, 101 years after its initial release. He also translated Anders Larsen's Bæivve-Alggo into Norwegian, which released in 2013. A memoir of Anders Pedersen Bær, translated into Norwegian by Lindbach as "Fortellingen om ei reise til Kvænland", was included in Tromsø University Museum periodical Ottar in 2017. He later translated the texts in the 2019 book Muitalusat into Norwegian under the title Erindringer.

Poetry
Lindbach released the poetry collection Geidosii in 1999 which touched on interpersonal relationships and the relationship humans have to nature and religion. Poems such as čakča were written in haiku form. The collection was released through Iđut and funded by the Sámi Culture Council. Its cover was illustrated by Bjørg Monsen Vars. Three of Lindbach's poems were included in the 2001 poetry collection Juoga mii geasuha. It was nominated for the 2002 Saami Council Literature Prize.

Death
Lindbach died at Burfjord Nursing Home in Kvænangen on 18 October 2020 at the age of 78.