Qvale's career as a translator from English, German and Swedish started in 1972.
His book about the theory and practice of translation, Fra Hieronymus til hypertekst.
Oversettelse i teori og praksis (1998), was published in English as From St. Jerome to Hypertext (Manchester 2003).
[1] He published the essay collection Det umuliges kunst in 1991 on Aschehoug, followed by the essay collection Samarkand, Sarabande, Sarajevo (2011) and the novels Trabant (2013) and Orvil (2020), both on Bokvennen.
[2] He was awarded the Bokklubbenes skjønnlitterære oversetterpris [no] in 2002 for translating The Magic Mountain[1] and the Bastian Prize in 2008 for translating Lotte in Weimar (1939), both books by Thomas Mann.