Ola Larsmo was born in 1957 in Syndbyberg, and is active as a cultural journalist, mainly on the national daily Dagens Nyheter. He was editor of the literary periodical BLM 1984-90. In 1983 he won first prize in a competition organized by Bonniers for the best short novel, and since then has published three other novels besides Maroon Mountain (see below), a book of short stories, and a collection of essays. Maroonberget was awarded the Vi Prize for Literature in 1996. Larsmo's next novel (Norra Vasa 133 [Northern Vasa 133]) is due to appear in the autumn of 1999 — he claims to be superstitiously afraid of sending anything to press in the year 2000.

Linda Schenck introduces Ola Larsmo's Maroon Mountain and presents her translation of an extended extract from the novel.

Elin Wägner (1882–1949) was the second woman, after Selma Lagerlöf, to be elected to the Swedish Academy. Today Wägner's novels and essays are receiving increased attention for their artistic merit and relevance to current issues of women, peace, and the environment.

Betty Cain and Ulla Sweedler have now completed translations into English of two of Wägner's early novels: Norrtullsligan (1908) as The Nortull Gang, and Kvarteret Oron (1919) as Stormy Corner. They introduce Wägner's work and present extracts from their translations of these two novels.

Ylva Eggehorn, born in 1950, has been publishing poetry in Sweden since the age of thirteen. She has a wide range as a lyricist, and can be as moving as she can be witty, as comforting in her convictions as she is striking in her novelty, and as concerned with the environment as she is with the human psyche. In her highly distinctive style, she conveys her faith and enthusiasm through series of concrete images combining the everyday with the extraordinary, the religious with the erotic, the very simple with the highly symbolic, and the juxtapositions can be as delightful as they are illuminating.

In her autobiographical memoir Ett ögonblick (A Moment), Bibi Andersson offers her many admirers a wry overview of her forty-odd years as a star of the Swedish stage and screen. With refreshing candour she writes of her difficult childhood, family traumas, Ingmar Bergman and contemporaries and rivals like Harriet Andersson and Liv Ullman. Less predictably, she emerges as a talented creative writer who has penned monologues for the three wives of August Strindberg, and as a committed activist who has worked for peace and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. Altogether an impressive literary debut from this most unactressy of actresses.

The Lagerlöf-Claesson translation challenge
As regular readers of Swedish Book Review will be aware, we issued a challenge in our last issue (1998:2) in connection with Kerstin Gustafsson's fascinating article on literary translation [available online here]: she referred to the opening sentences of Selma Lagerlöf's Charlotte Löwensköld and Stig Claesson's Samtal på ett fjärrtåg, and SBR invited readers to submit translations of the appropriate extracts. In the current issue (1999:1) we print six of the responses.