2024:2

Welcome to this latest issue of Swedish Book Review, in which we turn our attention to contemporary Swedish drama and the distinct art that is translation for the stage. This is a theme that feels particularly timely in light of Gothenburg Book Fair’s recent announcement that Drama will form one of its themes for 2025. Through a range of translated excerpts from contemporary works of drama, and features that delve into different aspects of theatre production, promotion and translation, with this issue we hope to offer a taste of the breadth and depth of Swedish drama today.

In translations, Christina Ouzounidis and Jenny Tunedal’s raw and piercing King Mother interrogates the many facets of familial love and what happens to them in the absence of memory, while Athena Farrokhzad’s Morality According to Medea responds to Euripides’ classic tragedy, placing the protagonist in a poetic dialogue with a personified Morality.

First performed exclusively online during the Covid pandemic, Ada Berger’s She’ll Be Named Minou probes themes of motherhood and hope in a troubling age, and Kristian Hallberg’s polyphonic, multi-media piece Kabul Sthlm Paris shines a light on Sweden’s disorienting and at times dehumanising asylum process.

In Memorial, Alejandro Leiva Wenger masterfully builds a multi-layered comedy on grief and the malleability of memory, while Bengt Ahlfors’ delicately crafted monologue My Elevator Days weaves the story of an entire life into one elderly man’s unconventional search for connection.

Our features continue our theatrical focus, with a variety of perspectives on drama in translation. Camila França and Trine Garrett of London-based theatre company Foreign Affairs discuss how working with theatre in translation has informed their practice as theatre-makers, and Ulricha Johnson of The Swedish Performing Arts Coalition shares insight into some of the latter’s initiatives to develop the performing arts ecosphere both domestically and abroad. Finally, acclaimed translator Ann Henning Jocelyn explores the particular demands – and rewards – of translating for the stage, offering lucid examples of what it means to go beyond words.

True to form, our reviews bookshelf is yet again packed with a fresh new crop of reviews, including urgent fiction, heartwarming children’s books and some of the year’s most-talked-about non-fiction.

We would like extend our sincere thanks to Swedish Literature Exchange for their support in producing this issue. We hope that you enjoy reading it.