2017:2

Earlier this year Nielsen BookScan published new data on translated titles in the UK book market in 2016, showing that fiction translated from Swedish represented the highest volume of sales at 19% of translated books sold. Of around sixty translated Swedish authors in total, four authors – David Lagercrantz,  Jonas Jonasson, Fredrik Backman and Camilla Läckberg – accounted for over three quarters of those sales. Trends inevitably fluctuate, but success such as this will, we hope, embolden more UK publishers to explore Swedish authors beyond the ‘top four’. As one of our contributors points out in this issue, publishing literary fiction in translation can be a hazardous business and the rewards are not always financial.

The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustaf III in order to advance Swedish language and literature, but it also steps into the international spotlight every year in October, when it announces its choice of recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.  The Academy has eighteen members and membership is for life. Novelist and playwright Sara Stridsberg was elected to this influential literary body in 2016. Here we publish her inaugural address to the  Academy, in which she paid tribute to her predecessor, Gunnel  Vallquist, and shared some of her insights into the art of literary translation.

Two of the books we feature this time are set on Baltic islands. The hardships of life on a remote island in the Åland archipelago in the 19th century are described in a novel by Anni Blomqvist, which was first published in the 1960s and is to be seen in a new musical adaptation at Helsinki City Theatre as part of the 2017 centennial celebrations. In a tale of a very different kind, Martin Kellerman – who gained international success with his comic strip Rocky – turns to novel writing with a ‘relationship thriller’ set in the Stockholm archipelago in the 21st century.  

In her second novel, Sara Razai tackles themes of ethnicity, class and exclusion during one day in the life of two teenage girls, best friends now separated by a continent. Gender roles too are explored by Jonas Rasmussen (Sara Sum Jensson) in his recent prose poem, written in response to a novella by Victoria Benedictsson published in 1888.  And as we struggle to absorb national and international news and distinguish between reliable and misleading sources, Magnus Florin’s latest book gives an interesting perspective on truth and falsehood in a timeless universe.

In a contribution to our occasional series, Nichola Smalley offers us a glimpse into the daily life of an independent publisher.  And in the latest selection of illuminating reviews of books recently published in Swedish, we meet some familiar names amid the new.