Editor: Sarah Death
News
2011:2 | 2011:1 | 2010:2 | 2010:1 | 2009:2 | 2009:1
More news from the Swedish literary translation world can be found on the SELTA website at www.selta.org.uk.
Latest News ▲
Tomas Tranströmer awarded Nobel Prize in Literature
6 October 2011: The Swedish Academy has awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2011 to the poet Tomas Tranströmer. For a biographical note on the poet, in English, see www.svenskaakademien.se/bio_en.html. A recent Tranströmer biography and new English translations of his work are featured in the reviews section of SBR 2011:2.
From the 2011:2 issue ▲
Centenary in SBR
Events and publications in Sweden and in the UK will mark the centenary of the death of August Strindberg. The autumn 2012 issue of SBR will be a Strindberg centenary special, with translations already planned from his letters, journalism and early work, and articles on the challenges of translating his drama and prose. The editor welcomes proposals for further submissions.
Memorable Conference
The June 2011 conference ‘Selma Lagerlöf: Text, Translation, Film’, held at University College London in association with Gothenburg and Edinburgh universities attracted researchers from the USA, UK, Sweden, and many other European countries. One of the high points was a packed screening at Bloomsbury’s Horse Hospital venue of the classic 1921 silent film of Lagerlöf’s The Phantom Carriage, with live piano music played by candlelight by Swedish composer Matti Bye. A publication is planned.
Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Nordic Culture
This major new reference work is close to completion and due to be published by Hurst Publishers, London, in 2012. With more than 1,000 entries, it will be an indispensable resource for anyone seeking information in the broad field of Nordic culture since 1945.
www.ucl.ac.uk/scandinavian-studies/encyclopaedia
Prizes
The winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2011 is prolific Australian illustrator and author Shaun Tan. This year, Tan also won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for ‘The Lost Thing’, based on his book of the same title. His works have been translated into more than ten languages, including Chinese.
Read more at www.alma.se/en
Three Seconds by Anders Roslund & Börge Hellström (Quercus), translated from the Swedish by Kari Dickson, has won the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger 2011.
New Swedish Fiction Book Club in London
The club has been meeting monthly since spring 2011 at Fika Swedish Bar and Grille on Brick Lane, London E1. Organised by postgraduate students from the Department of Scandinavian Studies at University College London, and partfunded by UCL’s Public Engagement Unit, the book club has so far been oversubscribed, and the discussions, on books such as Torgny Lindgren’s Hash (trans. Tom Geddes) and Kerstin Ekman’s Blackwater (trans. Joan Tate) have been going from strength to strength.
Young Translators’ Initiative
University College London’s Department of Scandinavian Studies invites young, unpublished Swedish-English literary translators to join a new project that aims to bring them together and help them develop their skills through a programme of events including workshops, peer reviewing and mentoring by experienced literary translators. The work will culminate in the publication of new collaborative translations of a number of Strindberg plays during the Strindberg centenary.
To register interest and for further information, please contact Agnes Broome: a.broome[at]ucl.ac.uk
More News from 2011
Selma Lagerlöf 2011: Text, Translation, Film
A major international conference, SELMA LAGERLÖF 2011: TEXT, TRANSLATION, FILM, will take place at University College London, 20-22 June 2011.The conference is hosted by the Department of Scandinavian Studies at UCL in conjunction with the Division of European Languages and Cultures (Scandinavian Studies) at the University of Edinburgh and the Department of Literature, History of Ideas and Religion at the University of Göteborg. The conference will mark the publication of the first three volumes in the new series 'Lagerlöf in English', published by Norvik Press, London, and will be the first international gathering of Lagerlöf scholars in well over a decade. The organisers hope the conference will contribute to raising Selma Lagerlöf's international profile and to the repositioning of her work in a global context.
The programme will include a plenary lecture on translation followed by a panel debate, a film evening including a screening of The Phantom Carriage, a plenary lecture focusing on the new Selma Lagerlöf Archive, and around 30 papers.
N.B. The start time on 20 June will be 13.30 or 14.00, not 17.00 as currently indicated in draft programme.
To register, go to: www.ucl.ac.uk/scandinavian-studies/lagerlof/index.
Prizes
Tom Geddes’ translation of Per Wästberg’s Sparrmans resa (The Journey of Anders Sparrman, Granta), which recently reached the longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Award 2010, has now been shortlisted for the Oxford Weidenfeld Prize.
The winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2011 is illustrator and author Shaun Tan from Australia, born in 1974. Shaun Tan has illustrated more than 20 books, notably The Rabbits (1998), The Lost Thing (2000), The Red Tree (2001), The Arrival (2006) and Tales from Outer Suburbia (2008). His works have been translated into more than 10 languages, including German, Swedish, Spanish and Chinese. More details at www.alma.se/en.
From the 2011:1 issue ▲
Time Out Tips Khemiri
Four stars from London listings magazine Time Out in February 2011 for Jonas Hassen Khemiri’ s play Invasion! in Frank Perry’s translation. This ‘sassy, street-smart production about Muslim identity’ got the thumbs up as ‘a cracking debut from Tooting Arts Company - a fringe production of the first order’.
www.timeout.com/london/theatre/event/213658/invasion
Selma By Design
Students of Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm will provide the cover designs for three Selma Lagerlöf titles to be published by Norvik Press in the summer of 2011: a revised edition of The Löwensköld Ring (translated by Linda Schenck); and new translations of Körkarlen (Peter Graves) and Herr Arnes penningar (Sarah Death).
Nordic Crime Fiction Under the Magnifying Glass
University College London’s first Nordic Noir Book Club event was a sellout in February when author Håkan Nesser joined Francis Hopkinson of Left Bank Pictures and an eager audience to consider the role of landscape in Swedish crime fiction, including TV adaptations and book cover design.
www.ucl.ac.uk/scandinavian-studies/scandinavian-crime
Scandinavian Crime Fiction, edited by Andrew Mestingen and Paula Arvas, (University of Wales Press, 2011) is a collection of essays on topics including ‘Dirty Harry in the Swedish Welfare State’, the place of pessimism in the Kurt Wallander series, and ‘Swedish Queens of Crime: the art of Self-Promotion’ (on Liza Marklund and Camilla Läckberg).
Palgrave Macmillan Crime Files series will publish its Scandinavian volume in autumn 2011 (title to be confirmed). The author, crime fiction expert Barry Forshaw, will examine the massive appeal of the field, and interview key authors, translators and publishers.
Festivals
NICE (Nordic Intercultural Creative Events) is an annual festival in the North West of England. Its main programme is in November-December, with satellite events throughout the year in design, literature, visual arts, film, architecture and more.
Camilla Läckberg will be at the Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, 21-24 July 2011. She will appear with Sophie Hannah and Tana French in a panel discussion on the fascination of the psychological thriller.
Invitees to the 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival include multiprizewinning Swedish author Steve Sem-Sandberg, whose The Emperor of Lies is published by Faber & Faber in July.
From the 2010:2 issue ▲
Dagger Double for Johan Theorin
The 2010 Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger Award for translated crime fiction 2010 has gone to writer/translator team Johan Theorin and Marlaine Delargy for The Darkest Room (Doubleday).
This follows last year’s win in the New Blood Dagger category for any debut crime novel. Theorin won with the earlier volume in his series set on the island of Öland, Echoes From The Dead, again in Marlaine Delargy’s translation.
The other Nordic titles shortlisted for the International Dagger 2010 were The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson, translated by Reg Keeland (MacLehose Press) and Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indriðason, translated by Victoria Cribb (Harvill Secker).
Nordic Noir - Scandinavian Crime Book Club
A series of events coordinated by University College London, January to April 2011. Join and meet other Scandinavian-crime lovers in London, authors, translators and specialists in Scandinavian languages, literature, history and cultures.
Scandinavian crime fiction has had an unrivalled success in the UK over the past ten years, led by internationally bestselling names like Peter Høeg, Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell. Today, crime writers from all the Nordic countries are available in translation, a rare occurrence in a British publishing market where less than 5 percent of available books are translations.
The planned events will bring crime fiction lovers, UCL researchers translators, publishers and authors together to share their knowledge of, and interest in, crime fiction and Nordic cultures. We will investigate the seemingly paradoxical popularity of violent crime fiction in countries well-known for their safe and peaceful welfare states, and explore what makes crime fiction from the Nordic countries particularly Nordic.
To be included on an email list to receive more information, and for enquiries about the project and the events, visit the website below and/or contact Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (j.stougaard-nielsen[at]ucl.ac.uk):
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/scandinavian-studies/scandinavian_crime
Don't Put Those Vuvuzelas Away Yet!
The 26th Gothenburg Book Fair, 23-26 September 2010, presents its widest focal theme so far: Africa and African literature. The event looks set to continue the cultural momentum generated on the sidelines of the recent World Cup, and (with any luck) to open its arms to volcanic-ash-trapped writers who could not speak as planned at the Africa-themed London Book Fair in April. More than 70 guests from 25 of the African nations are expected to visit. Speakers include Mpho Tutu Petina Gappah, Nawal El Saadawi, Nuruddin Farah and the ever-popular (in Sweden as in Britain) Alexander McCall Smith. This year’s overall programme includes 446 seminars with some 800 participants.
Selma Lagerlöf 2011: Text, Translation, Film
An international conference on the work of the Swedish Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf will be held in London on 20-22 June 2011, hosted by the Department of Scandinavian Studies at University College London, in conjunction with the Division of European Languages and Cultures (Scandinavian Studies) at the University of Edinburgh and the Department of Literature, History of Ideas and Religion at the University of Gothenburg.
A call for papers has been issued on UCL website, where further information about the conference will be provided as it becomes available.
www.ucl.ac.uk/scandinavian-studies
Historic Postcards
Ten years ago, packing cases full of letters, diaries, newspaper cuttings, photographs were discovered in an attic in Stockholm, along with a set of postcards sent from Hamburg to Sweden during World War II. 32 Postkarten retells the story of a German-Jewish family from the outbreak of the Second World War to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The authentic postcards, with English and German translations, and commentaries, are being published on the Internet from March 2010 in ‘simulated real time’ - on the date they were written, but 70 years later - at www.32postkarten.com.
The project has been devised and coordinated by Torkel S. Wächter, and the translators are Marlaine Delargy and Paul Berf. Given its postcard-length format, the material is well suited for the teaching of secondary and tertiary level history and German in schools. The material will remain available online well after the publication of the last postcard in December 2011.
For a press release about the project, in English, see:
Press Release (hover mouse over link to see full address)
Swedenborg Bicentenary Celebrations
The Swedenborg Society in London, established in 1810 with the main aim of translating and publishing the works of philosopher, scientist and visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), is celebrating its 200th anniversary throughout 2010. Its programme of events has featured speakers including A S Byatt, Simon Armitage, and neuroloist/writer David Eagleman. A new translation of Heaven and Hell and a complete bibliography of Swedenborg’s works have been launched. A season of films exploring Swedenborgian themes culminates in a short film festival at the end of October. In November, a conference entitled ‘Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Scientist, Scientific Visionary’ will take place.
Writers' and Literary Translators' International Congress 2010
Following the inaugural WALTIC meeting held in 2008 in Stockholm, the second congress convened on 2-5 September 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey. Special emphasis was given to the impact of cultural translation, and the journey of the word across borders and between cultures. Literacy, freedom of expression and authors’ rights remain key subject areas. SBR hopes translators received more attention at this congress than they did at the first.
From the 2010:1 issue ▲
Prizewinning Translators
The Bernard Shaw Prize for translation from the Swedish for the years 2007-09 was awarded in January 2010 to Thomas Teal for his translation of Fair Play by Tove Jansson (Sort Of Books). Kjell Espmark praised the winner’s ‘subtle way of making Jansson’s delicate art shine through its English attire’. Fellow judge Andrew Brown, looking for ‘an element of real difficulty in the translation and for a rendering that was accurate as well as faithful in spirit’, found that Teal’s ‘extraordinary’ translation answered on all counts. The runner up was Tiina Nunnally for her translation of The Story of Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist (Harvill Secker). The prize, worth £2,000, is sponsored by the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation, the Embassy of Sweden and Arts Council England.
www.societyofauthors.org/prizes-grants-and-awards
Frank Perry has received the Göran O. Eriksson Award for the translation of
Swedish drama. The award, worth 50,000 Swedish kronor, is made by Svenska Dramatikerförbundet. Frank Perry has translated many leading Swedish playwrights including Niklas Rådström, Lars Norén and Jonas Hassen Khemiri.
Peter Graves has won the Swedish Academy’s Translation Prize for 2009, and Tiina Nunnally has won the Academy’s 2009 prize for the introduction of Swedish culture abroad, which she shares with Hans-Peter and Karin Naumann.
www.svenskaakademien.se
Johan Theorin and his English translator Marlaine Delargy have won the 2009 Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger for Echoes from The Dead, a novel that was in fact first introduced to the English-speaking world in an extract in SBR back in 2007. The prizewinning book, entitled Skumtimmen in the original Swedish, was also shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger.
www.thecwa.co.uk/daggers/2009/newblood
A Faraway Island by Annika Thor, translated by Linda Schenck, won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award in the USA for the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a foreign language.
The 2009 August Prize
The winner of the fiction category was De fattiga i Lodz by Steve Sem-Sandberg (Albert Bonniers förlag), a powerful collective novel about life in the Jewish ghetto in the Polish city of Lodz in 1941-44.
The non-fiction category was won by Att överleva dagen by Brutus Östling and Susanne Åkesson, (Östlings Bokförlag Symposion) for its world-class bird photography and informative text.
The junior August went to a non-fiction title: Skriv om och om igen by Ylva Karlsson, Katarina Kuick, Sara Lundberg och Lilian Bäckman, (XPublishing), praised as an inspirational book for all aspiring young creative writers.
The 2010 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
Kitty Crowther, the Belgian illustrator and writer, was announced as the recipent of the 2010 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.
In Memoriam: Karin Petherick
We are profoundly sorry to announce to our readers the death in November 2009, at the age of 80, of Dr Karin Petherick, distinguished scholar, respected colleague and much-loved friend. A champion of this journal since its inception, Karin contributed many reviews over the years, and always went out of her way to praise and encourage its editors. She was a mainstay of the SBR Editorial Board from its formation in 1983 until early 2008, characteristically protesting throughout that she had little of value to offer.
A full obituary, published in The Times on 13 December, can be found at:
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6955068.ece
In Memoriam: John Hewish
It is with much regret that we announce the death on 13 January 2010 at the age of 88 of John Hewish, a frequent and erudite reviewer for SBR. With a degree in English from Lincoln College Oxford and an early period of his life as a journalist in Finland, he brought a valuable perspective to Swedish literature. He was the author of books on Emily Brontë, the history of patents and the nineteenth-century science collections of the British Library, where he spent the major part of his career.
From the 2009:2 issue ▲
Meeting Sweden in Edinburgh
August 2009 saw the largest concerted Swedish participation in the Edinburgh International Book Festival, thanks to the efforts of the Swedish Embassy in London and the Swedish Arts Council (Kulturrådet). Eight authors - Henning Mankell, Annika Thor, Eva Runefelt, Per Wästberg, Johannes Anyuru, Klas Östergren, Marjaneh Bakhtiari and Fredrik Sjöberg (in order of appearance) - took part in readings and discussion of their work. All but the crowd-pulling Mankell were paired with a British counterpart for their sessions, leading to some fascinating conversations about the nature of cultural specificity, internationalism, and the status of writers in Britain and Sweden. The fact that such luminaries of the British literary scene as Anne Fine, Michael Symmons Roberts, Nadeem Aslam, Sir Michael Holroyd, John Burnside, Roma Tearne and Adam Foulds were happy to appear alongside Swedish writers suggests a genuine interest in contemporary literature from Sweden.
A companion volume to Swedish Book Review, entitled Literary Dialogues: Contemporary Swedish Writing in English, containing translated excerpts of the work of the visiting authors, was published to coincide with the Festival. Readers interested in obtaining a copy should contact: norvik.press[at]ucl.ac.uk.
Spotlight on Selma
Two London events mark the centenary of Selma Lagerlöf’s Nobel Prize for Literature. On 5 November, Dr Helena Forsås-Scott gives a free lunch-hour lecture, ‘The Power of Lagerlöf’, at University College London. The lecture will be available to watch online from seven days after the event.
For details visit: www.ucl.ac.uk/lhl
A number of vintage films based on Lagerlöf’s works will be screened later in the autumn. For date and venue, check the Embassy of Sweden’s home page: www.swedenabroad.com
In the USA, Penguin has just published Paul Norlen’s new translation of The Saga of Gösta Berling, with an introduction by George C. Schoolfield (for details see our Just Out and Coming Up section). For copyright reasons, this cannot be sold in the EU until 2011.
Reading Round the World
This programme of children’s events is the brainchild of the organisation Outside In (established 2007), which is bringing international authors and illustrators to the UK during 2009 to join translators and others in interactive events exploring books from all over the world, particularly children’s books in translation. May saw a visit by Swedish children’s author Anders Brundin, whose Dudley the Daydreamer, illustrated by Joanna Rubin Dranger, was published by Winged Chariot Press. He led children’s events at British Airways Community Learning Centre (in the flight simulator!) and at Folkestone libraries, to coincide with Winged Chariot’s ‘Picturing Europe’, a 3D exhibition of children’s illustrators from across Europe that was touring Kent.
In October, award-winning Ulf Stark and his translator and publisher Julia Marshall will be ‘In Conversation’ with Wendy Cooling at the Swedish Embassy in London, and visit Bromley Central Library to meet children from local ‘Chatterbook’ groups.
‘Reading Round the World’ is Outside In’s first national project:
All Go On the Eastern Front
The latest issue of literary journal 00-TAL, number 29/2009, is a Finland-Swedish special. Mainland Swedish critics, writes Madeleine Grive in her editorial (title as above), too often unjustly ignore the literary scene of their easterly neighbours, which has flourished in recent years. Contents include extracts from new and forthcoming works by Monika Fagerholm, Robert Åsbacka and Malin Kivelä. Merete Mazarella argues in an article that Finland-Swedish literature has drawn strength from its minority position; Fagerholm, Kjell Westö, Tuija Lindström, Ralf Andtbacka and others are interviewed or profiled by leading literary names from Sweden.
Finland-Swedish writers have also featured in our sister publication, the now online Books from Finland www.booksfromfinland.fi. Items have included poetry by Claes Andersson and the correspondence of Hagar Olsson and Edit Södergran.
Sweden, meanwhile, is the focus country of the Helsinki Book Fair, 22-25 October 2009: www.helsinkibookfair.fi
New Handbook for Literary Translators and Editors
Translation in Practice: A Symposium, published in May 2009 by Dalkey Archive Press and edited by Gill Paul, is a very useful, 74-page guide to best practice, based on discussions at a forum held in London in 2008. It takes a positive, practical approach and covers such issues as: how editors choose translators, negotiating contracts; establishing boundaries; translation problem areas such as dialect, colloquialisms, humour, culture-specific references and transatlantic compromises; and what makes a good editor. It looks set to become essential reading for experienced and aspiring literary translators alike, and their editors, we hope.
Crazy for Crime
Three of the six novels shortlisted for the Crime Writer’s Assocation International Dagger Award 2009 were Swedish: Karin Alvtegen’s Shadow, translated by McKinley Burnett, (Canongate); Stieg Larsson’s The Girl wh Played with Fire, translated by Reg Keeland (MacLehose Quercus); and Johan Theorin’s Echoes from the Dead, translated by Marlaine Delargy (Doubleday). The prize was won for the fourth time by the team of France’s Fred Vargas and her translator Siân Reynolds for The Chalk Circle Man (Harvill Secker). www.thecwa.co.uk
Swedish film production company Yellow Bird recently announced that it is has acquired the film rights to six of Liza Marklund’s books featuring criminal reporter Annika Bengtzon. The company is currently producing six TV films and one feature film in Swedish based on Stieg Larsson’s critically acclaimed Millennium trilogy, as well as 13 new Swedish movies about Henning Mankell’s criminal inspector Wallander. Previous productions include adaptations of works by Helene Tursten and Norwegian bestseller Anne Holt, as well as co-production of the BBC series Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh.
Dan Brown’s new thriller The Lost Symbol is to be speed-translated into Swedish by six translators working simultaneously, each allocated a hundred pages. The Swedish edition is due to be published by Albert Bonniers förlag only a month after publication of the book by Random House, but fear of pirate editions meant that no one was allowed pre-publication sight of the text. (Source: Dagens nyheter and www.bonnier.com/en/content/dan-brown-code)
From the 2009:1 issue ▲
New Swedish Titles 2008
The latest edition of this useful survey of new work by noteworthy Swedish authors is available on the Swedish Arts Council's website www.kulturradet.se Select "English" at the top of the screen, go to "Publications" and click on "New Swedish Titles". A printed version of the 24-page survey can be ordered there, and it can also be downloaded as a pdf file. The 2008 survey was written by Ulrika Knutson. A junior book survey compiled for the Bologna Book Fair, "New Swedish Books for Young Readers" will also be available in due course.
New Plays in London
Niklas Rådström's Monsters, a hard-hitting play about the murder of toddler James Bulger, will run from 6-30 May 2009 in a translation by Gabriella Berggren. The play is directed by Christopher Haydon and presented by Strawberry Vale Productions at the Arcola Theatre. Despite the fact that the play has yet to be performed, it is already proving controversial. Jonas Hassen Khemiri's first play Invasion! enjoyed its UK premiere and a threeweek run at the Soho Theatre in March 2009. The play was translated by Frank Perry and directed by Lucy Kerbel, who was selected by a panel chaired by the playwright as winner of the Young Angels Theatremakers Award 2008. Invasion! deals with the lives of young immigrants in the Swedish capital Stockholm, and was a sell out there for two years. It deploys comedy to assault our deepest prejudices about identity, race and language.
Swedish Writers in Edinburgh
No less than eight Swedish authors will take part in the 2009 Edinburgh International Book Festival, to be held on 15-31 August 2009. The visiting authors, who will be paired with British writers for the occasion, are: Swedish-Ugandan poet Johannes Anyuru; Iranian-born Malmö novelist Marjaneh Bakhtiari; top crime writer Henning Mankell; Stockholm poet and writer Eva Runefelt; biologist, writer and art collector Fredrik Sjöberg; prizewinning writer of novels for young people Annika Thor; novelist Per Wästberg, whose latest novel Anders Sparrmans resa is to be published in English by Granta in 2010; and novelist Klas Östergren, published in the UK by Canongate and the USA by MacAdam Cage.
www.booksfromfinland.fi
Books from Finland magazine, which also covers Finland-Swedish writing, has converted to electronic publication after 42 years in print. The website will be officially unveiled at the London Book Fair in April 2009, but the material already posted gives a taste of what will follow. New articles will be added continuously, and interested readers can also sign up to receive an electronic newsletter. The site also has an impressively large archive based on online back issues.
Prizewinners
The Swedish Publishers' Association awards the prestigious August Prize in three categories, each worth 100,000 Swedish kronor.The fiction prize went to Per Olov Enquist's "literary autobiography" Ett annat liv (Norstedts Förlag; see review on pages 77-79 of this issue).The winner was chosen from a shortlist of five, which unusually included three volumes of poetry.The non-fiction prize went to Regi Bergman by Paul Duncan & Bengt Wanselius (Bokförlaget Max Ström), now been published in English as The Ingmar Bergman Archives (Taschen).The winner of the prize for writing for children and young people was Legenden om Sally Jones by Jakob Wegelius (Bonnier Carlsen Bokförlag). Stieg Larsson's Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, translated by Reg Keeland and published by McLehose Press, has won the Books Direct Crime Thriller of the Year award at the Galaxy British Book Awards.
London Highlights of Swedish EU Presidency 2009
The Embassy of Sweden in London joins forces with the City of London Festival (www.colf.org) and other partners for a programme including many cultural events. July's gala opening and concert at the Guildhall will feature the Nordic Chamber Orchestra and trombonist Christian Lindberg. Benny Andersson (of ABBA fame) and his Orchestra will entertain visitors to a Family Fun Day on Hampstead Heath with an eclectic mix of jazz, folk, pop and dance music. Other events include a major Ingmar Bergman film season at the Barbican and the "Visual Voltage" exhibition, presenting a green view of energy from an art and design perspective.
Centenary of Selma Lagerlöf's Nobel Prize
Events are planned in London for autumn 2009, including a screening of one of the films based on the author's books. Details will be available at the Swedish Embassy website: www.swedenabroad.com/london Norvik Press plans to publish new translations of a number of Selma Lagerlöf works in 2011.
Moomins (1)
The first author featured in Waterstones Bookshops' "Writer's Table" promotion was Philip Pullman, whose book selection in the autumn of 2008 included Tove Jansson's Finn Family Moomintroll. First published in Finland as Trollkarlens hatt in 1948, the book appeared in English in 1961, in a translation by Elizabeth Portch. The Puffin edition currently in print, and included in Philip Pullman's literary smörgåsbord, comes with Tove Jansson's own cover design and illustrations.
Moomins (2)
Puffin has signed a deal with Moomin Characters (MD Roleff Kråkström) for a series of new Moomin books over a number of years, with "completely new texts and illustrations", for a record sum between a Finnish and a foreign publisher. The first titles are due in 2010, timed to coincide with Mumin/Moomin turning 60, and Puffin 70. (Source: Svensk bokhandel)
Current Issue: 2011:2
- Daniel Sjölin, from The World’s Last Novel
- Klas Åmark, Neighbour of Evil
- Paul Binding, Selma Lagerlöf: Nils Holgersson’s Wonderful Journey
- Ruth Urbom and Nichola Smalley, Inventing an Idiolect: Report from a Workshop on Translating Jonas Hassen Khemiri
- Tom Geddes, SELTA: The First 25 Years, 1981-2006
- Ingela Strandberg, We are Unspeakable Assemblies of Atoms
- Bookshelf
- Just Out and Coming Up
- News and Views