More news from the Swedish literary translation world can be found on the SELTA website at www.selta.org.uk

From the 2008:1 issue

Nordic Translation Conference

The conference, held at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies in London on 6-8 March, was organised by Brett Epstein/Away With Words and the Department of Scandinavian Studies at University College London with support from the Nordic Culture Fund and the Nordic Embassies in London, among others. It attracted a large number of participants from many countries and unusually brought together diverse groups including literary translators, technical translators, corpus researchers and subtitlers.

For more information about the conference and the planned publication arising from it, please visit: www.nordictranslation.net

New British Library Scandinavian Catalogue

April 2008 sees the launch of the new Catalogue of Scandinavian Books in the British Library Printed Before 1801, compiled by Peter Hogg. This is the first time a major library has produced a catalogue that comprehensively records its holdings of early printed materials from all the Scandinavian countries. The collection of over 11,000 items consists of books, periodicals and pamphlets, as well as maps and printed music. The author catalogue containing detailed descriptions is supplemented by indexes of titles, printers and publishers, subjects and provenance.

All Change Up North

The Nordic Council of Ministers has discontinued publication of its yearbook Nordic Literature, which was a source of articles in English about Swedish and Finland-Swedish literatures, among others. Nordic Culture Point was set up in 2007 as the new overall contact point for Nordic cultural co-operation, both within the Nordic region and internationally. Those interested can join a mailing list for regular e-newsletters and updates. (www.kknord.org)

Back issues of Nordic Literature are still available at www.norden.org/kultur, and paper copies can also be sent free of charge on request

Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2008

The recently announced sixth winner of this major annual award is Australian writer Sonya Hartnett (b. 1948). The jury praised her for depicting the circumstances of young people without avoiding the darker sides of life, for linguistic virtuosity and brilliant narrative technique, and for pushing the boundaries between teen and adult fiction. Sonya Hartnett has been translated into a number of languages, including German, Swedish, Italian and Chinese. She has won numerous awards, including the Guardian Children’s Literature Prize for Thursday’s Child in 2002.

For further details about the prize and the author, see: www.alma.se

Writers' and Literary Translators' International Congress

WALTIC 2008, billed as the first literary world congress of its kind, will take place in Stockholm, 29 June-2 July. It plans to bring together a thousand academics and independent writers, poets and translators in a programme of seminars, lectures and guidelines for best practice. WALTIC is arranged by the Swedish Writers’ Union in conjunction with SIDA, The Swedish National Commission for UNESCO and the Swedish Institute. Issues in focus will include literacy, intercultural dialogue, freedom of expression, and authors’ rights.

For more information and registration details, visit www.waltic.com

Gothenburg Book Fair

The 2008 Gothenburg Book & Library Fair will take place on 25-28 September. The country in focus will be Latvia, celebrating its ninetieth birthday this year. The project co-ordinator is Juris Kronbergs, Latvian poet and translator. The theme country for 2009 will be Spain.

For further details, see: www.goteborg-bookfair.com

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Silvester Mazzarella’s translation of Bengt Ohlsson’s Gregorius (Portobello Books) has been shortlisted for the 2008 Independent prize. The novel takes the unsavoury villain Pastor Gregorius from Hjalmar Söderberg’s classic novel Doktor Glas and shows him as a victim, even a hero. The winner of the £10,000 prize, to be divided between the author and translator, will be announced in early May.

Branagh to Play Wallander

The BBC is to film a mini-series (three 90-minute episodes) of Henning Mankell novels on location in Ystad in the summer of 2008, with leading British actor Kenneth Branagh in the title role as Kurt Wallander. Branagh is said to have taken the initiative jointly with Swedish film company Yellow Bird. A devotee of the Wallander novels, he told Broadcast magazine: “Wallander is a wonderfully complex and compelling character and I am excited to be playing this fascinatingly flawed but deeply human detective”.

Campaign Against Sub-Standard Subtitles

When did you last have your enjoyment of a foreign film marred by sub-standard subtitles? Did you complain to the distributor? Developments in the entertainment industry and advances in software technology have eroded subtitlers’ working conditions and pay, and had a detrimental effect on quality. Now SUBTLE, the Subtitlers’ Association, has produced a manifesto to raise the status of the profession, campaign for better employment terms, and raise awareness among consumers and film makers.

To find out more, visit: www.subtitlers.org.uk

Cultural Counsellor Takes Her Leave

Johanna Garpe is about to move on after her four years as Cultural Counsellor at the Swedish Embassy in London. Highlights of her tenure have included a series of high-profile jazz concerts in Scotland, the “Small Feet Go Far” young people’s drama project at London’s Unicorn Theatre, Linnaeus tercentenary events nationwide, and an activity day for children to celebrate the launch of the new Oxford University Press translation of Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking. Interviewed by Henrik Strömberg in Göteborgsposten on 18 March 2008, Johanna Garpe revealed that architecture and modern dance will be the focus of Swedish cultural activities in the UK in 2008. She returns to Sweden to continue her work as a theatre director, starting with a production at the Drottningholm Theatre this summer.

From the 2007:2 issue

New Website
James Smith, editor of three Booktrust websites including www.theshortstory.org.uk will edit a new Booktrust website which aims to raise the profile of translated fiction in the UK. The site will feature a searchable bibliography of titles currently in print in the UK, reviews, extracts, a news section, articles by authors, translators, publishers and agents, and information about prizes.

Nordic Translation Conference

A major conference will take place in London at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies on 7 and 8 March, 2008. The speakers will include Douglas Robinson, Kirsten Malmkjær, Tiina Nunnally, Geoffrey Samuelsson-Brown, Janet Garton and Martin Næs.

The conference will look at literary and non-literary translation of all kinds, including interpreting and sub-titling, both between various Nordic languages and also between English and the Nordic languages. Nordic here includes Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish, any of the Sámi dialects, Faroese, and Greenlandic. The organizer is Brett Epstein, a Swedish to English translator, writer, editor, and PhD student in translation studies. She can be contacted c/o French Department, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, Wales, or by fax to +44 1792 295978. Conference details are available at www.awaywithwords.se/ and the email address for the conference is conference (at) awaywithwords.se

Happy Birthday

In 2008 it will be fifty years since the founding of the UK Translators' Association, set up as a constituent part of the Society of Authors, a trade union for professional writers which now has more than 8,000 members.
The goal was to provide translators with an effective means of protecting their interests and sharing their concerns. The TA is a source of professional advice, a representative for individuals, and an advocate for the profession as a whole.
Events are planned to mark the anniversary. Readers will be able to keep abreast of the plans by visiting the 'Subsidiary Groups' section of the Society's website: www.societyofauthors.org

Further to the obituary of Göran Printz-Påhlson in SBR 2006:2, Karin Petherick writes:

I rejoiced at Michael Robinson’s account of Göran Printz-Påhlson’s outstanding gifts as scholar, poet, and translator. This country has every reason to relish the fact that this hugely gifted Swede chose to make his home in Cambridge for forty-four years. For anyone working in the Scandinavian field, it was a source of pride that this living legend was here in our midst. He loved Cambridge and relished the intellectual stimulation, the debates, the visitors from all corners of the globe. He had no wish to return to Sweden and it was because his beloved wife Ulla longed to be with their children and grandchildren that he finally and manfully accepted the hard decision. R.I.P.

From the 2007:1 issue

More Tove Jansson Stories in English

Following the success of The Summer Book and A Winter Book, Sort Of Books has acquired translation rights to eight of Tove Jansson’s titles for adults, planning to publish one a year until the centenary of her birth in 2014. The first, Fair Play, will be published in June 2007. Three further titles, translations of Resa med lätt bagage, Den ärliga bedragaren and Brev från Klara will be published in the next 2-3 years, to be followed by others including Lyssnerskan and Meddelande.
For further information see: www.sortof.co.uk

Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

The Venezuelan project Banco del Libro (Book Bank) is the 2007 winner of the ALMA award, worth 5 million Swedish kronor annually and now in its fifth year.
Born out of a textbook exchange scheme begun in 1960, Banco del Libro is a non-profit institution with headquarters in Caracas. Since then it has grown and branched out to promote reading in Venezuela, in every conceivable arena and genre of children’s literature.

The jury said: “In a true pioneering spirit, with ingenuity and a sheer determination, the Banco del Libro has constantly sought new ways of disseminating books and promoting reading among children in Venezuela. Enthusiasm, professionalism, closeness to the children and a refreshing lack of bureaucracy are the hallmarks of the Banco del Libro’s work, whether in shanty towns, mountain villages, universities or out in cyberspace.”

Further information about the award winner can be found at the Award website www.alma.se, and the organization’s own website: www.bancodellibro.org.ve

The Astrid Lindgren Centenary 2007

The centenary is being marked by events all over the world promoting children’s literature and celebrating the life and work of Astrid Lindgren.
For details visit: www.astridlindgren2007.com.

An exhibition on the life and work of the author was staged at the Bologna Book Fair, 24-27 April, along with seminars on the theme “In the Spirit of Astrid Lindgren”. A survey of new writing for young people in Sweden, “In Astrid’s Footsteps” by Ulrika Milles, was written to tie in with these events and is available from the Swedish Institute.

Name Change (I)

News & Events, the calendar of arts events published online by the Embassy of Sweden in London, has changed its name to Swedish Culture in the UK. Visit www.swedenabroad.com/london or ask for monthly email reminders as each new issue becomes available by contacting swedishculture (at) foreign.ministry.se

Name Change (II)

Norrländska författarsällskapet is changing its name to Norrländska
litteratursällskapet. Founded in 1954, the society has changed its name to signal that it is open not only to authors but to anyone with an interest in the writing of the Norrland region. It publishes a journal, Provins, several times a year. For further details of the society’s activities see: www.norrlitt.se

Gunilla Anderman

SBR is sad to announce the recent death, at the age of 69, of Gunilla Anderman, Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Surrey. Gunilla Anderman had been a SELTA member since 1983, and was guest editor of the 1987 SBR Supplement on Contemporary Swedish Drama; she wrote widely on translation and Scandinavian drama, and translated numerous Swedish plays. A longer tribute will appear in the next issue.

Marianne Fredriksson

SBR reports with regret the death, at the age of 79, of the prolific novelist Marianne Fredriksson, whose novels in English translation were among the few works of Swedish fiction widely found in bookshops and at airport bookstalls in the pre-Mankell era. Her novels were translated into a total of 44 languages.
Published in English were: Anna, Hanna och Johanna (Hanna’s Daughters), Simon och ekarna (Simon & the Oaks) and Enligt Maria Magdalena (According to Mary), all translated by Joan Tate; Flyttfåglar (Inge & Mira) and Älskade barn (Elisabeth’s Daughter), translated by Anna Paterson. Joan Tate also completed translations of five other Fredriksson novels, which still await a publisher: Evas bok (Eve’s Book) Kains bok (Cain’s Book) Noreas saga (The Tale of Norea), Den som vandrar om natten... (He Who Walks by Night) and Blindgång (Blind Alley).

For further information contact Bengt Nordin Agency: bengt.nordin (at) nordinagency.se

New Charity Promotes Literature in Translation

2007 sees the launch of Outside In: Inside Out, a new UK organization which will promote, explore and celebrate world books, with a particular focus on literature in translation. Founded by Deborah Hallford, Alexandra Strick and Edgardo Zaghini, it will build on the success of Outside In: Children’s Literature in Translation (published in 2005 by Milet and supported by Arts Council England – see SBR 2006 Supplement: Writing for Young Adults).

The charity will produce a series of guides and resources, including online information, develop outreach work in schools and libraries, stage exhibitions and workshops and books from other countries, helping publishers to identify opportunities for publishing translated books.

Gothenburg Book Fair

The 23rd Gothenburg Book and Library Fair (Bok och Bibliotek) will take place on 27-30 September 2007. Estonia will be the country in focus.

More details: www.bok-bibliotek.se and www.estlit.ee

Helsinki Book Fair

The 2007 Helsinki Book Fair will take place on 25-28 October. Norway will be the country in focus. Finland-Swedish publishers and authors will as usual feature strongly.

For more details: www.finnexpo.fi/kirja/default.asp?code_language=en

From the 2006:2 issue

Correction

In SBR 2006:1 we inadvertently printed the wrong website address for STiNA (Swedish Translators in North America). Apologies to anyone misled by the error. The correct address is:
www.swedishtranslators.org

Tove Jansson conference

A conference on Finland-Swedish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson takes place at Pembroke College, Oxford, on 24 March 2007. Some thirty speakers from fourteen countries will present papers and the plenary lecture will be given by Professor Boel Westin, University of Stockholm, whose biography of Jansson is to be published in 2007. There will also be an exhibition of memorabilia and Tove Jansson’s niece will be a guest of honour.

Many of the papers will appear in a book, Tove Jansson: A Collection of Critical Essays, to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing later in 2007.
For further conference details, contact organizer Kate McLoughlin: K.McLoughlin (at) englit.arts.gla.ac.uk.

Linnaeus tercentenary

The organisers of Britain’s tercentenary celebrations have lost no time in raising the media profile of Sweden’s famous botanist Carl von Linné (known internationally as Linnaeus), with radio interviews on BBC Radio 4’s Today news programme and its science magazine The Material World in January 2007.

The Linnean Society of London, the Embassy of Sweden and their partner organizations are offering an extensive programme of exhibitions, talks, film screenings and seminars all over the UK. Events will include the Classified! show involving live animals at London Zoo, a Swedish garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, a Linnaeus Birthday Picnic at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and a theatrical presentation for schools.

The Linnaean Society, Natural History Museum and British Library in partnership with several Scandinavian academic libraries are collaborating on the Linnaeus Link project, an online union catalogue of Linnaean material.
For further information visit:
www.linnean.org and www.swedenabroad/london

The IK Foundation & Company in Whitby is publishing in English Linnaeus’ earliest writing, his Notebook from 1725, when he was at school in Växjö, Småland. For more information visit:
www.ikfoundation.org/news/linnaeus-notebook.html

Issue 2007:1 of SBR will have a Linnaeus theme.

Other literary prize and nominations

The winners in the three categories of Sweden’s August Prize 2006 were: Susanna Alakoski (fiction) for her novel Svinalängorna (Pig Row); Cecilia Lindqvist (non-fiction) for her cultural history of the Chinese lute, Qin; and Per Nilsson (children’s books) for Svenne.

Finland-Swedish writer Kjell Westö has won the Finlandia Prize for his new novel Där vi en gång gått (Where We Once Walked).

Sweden’s nominations for the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Literature Prize 2007 are Ann Jäderlund’s poetry collection I en cylinder i vattnet av vattengråt (In a Cylinder in the Water of Watertears); and Sara Stridsberg’s novel Drömfakulteten (The Dream Faculty), which is reviewed in Bookshelf in this issue of SBR. The nominees from Finland include Finland-Swedish writer Eva-Stina Byggmäster for Älvdrottningen (The River Queen). The winner will be announced in March 2007.

In Britain, Tiina Nunally’s translation of Per Olov Enquist’s Boken om Blanche och Marie (The Story of Blanche and Marie, Harvill Secker) has reached the long-list for the £10,000 Independent Foreign Fiction Award. The award will be made in May 2007.

2006 Bernard Shaw Prize

The 2006 Shaw Prize, open to English translations from Swedish published between 2003 and 2005, has been awarded to Sarah Death for her translation of Ellen Mattson’s novel Snow (Jonathan Cape, 2005). The judges praised the eighteen submissions, noting that “over the years, the standard of translation across the board has risen appreciably”.

The Shaw Prize will next be awarded in 2009, and will be open to translations published in the UK between 2006 and 2008.

Retirement honour

Tom Geddes has retired after 25 years as the Secretary, Treasurer and, for a period, Chairman of SELTA, the Swedish-English Literary Translators Association. On 20 November 2006 Sweden’s Ambassador to London, Staffan Carlsson, bestowed on him the insignia of Commander of the Royal Order of the Polar Star in recognition of his valuable contribution to British-Swedish cultural relations. The Embassy generously gave a vin d’honneur and an evening reception to mark the occasion. Alongside his SELTA duties and those of Head of Germanic Collections at the British Library until 1996, Tom Geddes has found time to be an active translator (from Swedish, and occasionally Norwegian and German), writer, reviewer, publisher’s reader and bibliography compiler. He now looks forward to having more time for these pursuits.

From the 2006:1 issue

Göran Printz-Påhlson (1931-2006)

SBR was sad to learn of the recent death of Göran Printz-Påhlson, poet, translator, academic and long-standing advisory editor of SBR. An appreciation by Michael Robinson appears in issue 2006:2.

Scandinavia meets Asia in the Pacific Northwest

For the first time, Scandinavian languages will be a main focus at the ALTA (American Literary Translators Association) conference, this year to be held on Oct 18-21 at Bellevue, near Seattle, Washington.
Laura Wideburg, Secretary of Swedish Translators in North America (STiNA), is coordinating the programme. Göran Malmqvist of the Swedish Academy will be a keynote speaker. Johannes Göransson of Action Books will head a publisher's panel, Thor Truelson a Scandinavian translation workshop and Laura Wideburg a panel on contemporary Swedish literature. More information on the STiNA website: www.swedishtranslators.org.

Literary prizes

Swedish poet Göran Sonnevi has won the 2006 Nordic Council Literature Prize for his collection of poetry Oceanen (The Ocean), published by Bonniers in November 2005. His work has been extensively translated by Rika Lesser, whose A Child Is Not a Knife: Selected Poems of Göran Sonnevi was published by Princeton in 1993. Her translation of the long title poem from Mozart’s Third Brain (1996) won the American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Award in 2002. Some of her translations from The Ocean will appear in SBR 2006:2.
Further information at www.norden.org

David McDuff has won Finlandssvenska författareförenings Stora Pris 2006, worth 12,000 euros, in recognition of 30 years’ work as a translator introducing Finland-Swedish in English.
Further details: www.forfattarna.fi

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2006 goes to the American author Katherine Paterson. Born in Qing Jiang, Jiangsu, China in 1932, she was called by the jury “a brilliant psychologist who gets right under the skin of the vulnerable young people she creates”.
More information at www.alma.se and www.terabithia.com.

The Duncan Lawrie International Dagger will award £5,000 to the writer of the book chosen as the year’s best crime novel in a language other than English, plus £1,000 to its translator. Duncan Lawrie, a private bank, is also the new sponsor of the Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger Award, which will exclude foreign authors from consideration in future years. Past winners of the Golden Dagger include Henning Mankell.