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| 2004:2
Issue |
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The Swedish publishers’
catalogues arrive earlier every year – spring
publicity hits the doormat in late November and Christmas
stocking fillers are announced in the heat of the summer
– but it is always exciting to see which new books
are in store. This autumn there have been new titles
from some big names, including Per Olov Enquist, Katarina
Frostenson, Theodor Kallifatides, Mikael Niemi, and
Agneta Pleijel. Sweden also now has not only a much-heralded
new translation by Erik Andersson and Lotta Olsson of
the first part of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord
of the Rings but also, perhaps surprisingly, its
first ever translation (by Maria Ekman) of Anne Brontë’s
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
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The catalogues themselves have an
increasingly stylish, design-conscious look, and the books
are much more temptingly presented, sometimes with short translated
extracts. This outbreak of professionalism and international
self-awareness seems to be starting to bear fruit in Britain
and the USA. Our listing of titles “Just Out and Coming
Up” is proof of lively activity on the Swedish-to-English
literary scene. There are already further titles scheduled
for later in 2005; and our occasional extended bibliography
of Swedish titles published in English in recent years proves
that this liveliness is no mere flash in the pan.
We are also very pleased to publish
a piece in this issue about the long-planned formation of
a US counterpart to SELTA, the Swedish-English Literary Translators’
Association here in the United Kingdom. We wish STiNA (The
Association of Swedish Translators in North America) success
and growing influence in the coming years.
SBR perhaps does not dip into Sweden’s
cornucopia of books for young people often enough, so we are
glad to present part of a teen novel by Inger Edelfeldt. We
also feature translations of work by two eminent but very
different twentieth-century Swedish writers, Artur Lundkvist
and Walter Ljungquist, who – much like Anne Brontë
in Sweden – deserve wider recognition here. Jim Potts,
in something of a companion piece to that by Maria Schottenius
in SBR 2004:1, looks back on a career with the British Council
concluding with a productive period in Sweden that culminated
this autumn in a star-studded British presence at the Gothenburg
Book Fair, where the literature of the British Isles was in
focus. |
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 from
A Door Stands Ajar (En dörr står på glänt)
Walter Ljungquist
Translated by Chris Dann and Bo Georgii-Hemming
Attempts
to categorise the work of Ljungquist (1900–1974) tend
to lead to the conclusion that like his characters he is an
outsider. Readers enter a new world, often with elements of
mystery. We present Chris Dann and Bo Georgii-Hemming's translation
of Ljungquist's short story A Door Stands Ajar, as
well as an introduction by Chris Dann. |
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 from
Shadows in the Mirror (Skuggorna i spegeln)
Inger Edelfeldt
Translated by Sarah Death
Swedish
Book Review perhaps does not dip into Sweden's cornucopia of
books for young people often enough, so we are glad to present
part of a teen novel by Inger Edelfeldt. Edelfeldt's writing
has always displayed a wicked sense of humour and proved itself
enormously adaptable to a wide variety of styles. This is evident
in the first person narrative of teenage angst and escape into
parallel worlds that is her latest book for young adults. Sarah
Death introduces Shadows in the Mirror and presents
her translation of chapters 1, 3 and 6. |
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 Poems
and Prose Poetry
Artur Lundkvist
Translated by Henning Koch
A
self-taught writer, Lundkvist allied himself with the forces
of surrealism, primitivism and the Left, explaining that he
wanted to write books "without frontiers" and "beyond
the tyranny of genre". Henning Koch presents his translations
of extracts from Apholyricisms, The Magpie, Seen in the Flowing
Water, The Talking Tree and Malinga. |
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 Mutual
Interests: Four Years as Director of the British Council Stockholm
(and Cultural Attaché)
Jim Potts
Jim
Potts, in something of a companion piece to that by Maria Schottenius
in SBR 2004:1, looks back on a career
with the British Council concluding with a productive period
in Sweden that culminated this autumn in a star-studded British
presence at the Gothenburg Book Fair, where the literature of
the British Isles was in focus. |
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 Sarek
and Kebnekaise
Claes Grundsten
Translated by Laurie Thompson
Sarek
and Kebnekaise are groups of mountain peaks in the far north-west
of Sweden. Laurie Thompson reviews Claes Grundsten's collection
of "some of the best mountain photographs you will ever
live to see", a "book to be cherished by those who
have a Romantic attachment to wild mountain scenery, to wildernesses,
to the awesome scenery of Arctic Sweden". |
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 The
Birth of STiNA
Laura A. Wideburg
Laura
A. Wideburg describes the long-planned formation of a US counterpart
to SELTA, the Swedish-English Literary Translators' Association
here in the UK. We wish STiNA (the Association of Swedish Translators
in North America) success and growing influence in the coming
years.
STiNA
website |
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 Sweden
in English. Recent literary translations and books on Sweden
Compiled by Tom Geddes
Tom
Geddes' regular bibliography of recent literary translations
and books on Sweden. |
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