2011:2

The translator of poetry is peculiarly vulnerable. The relative brevity of poems leaves them, as it were, naked to scrutiny. The gimlet-eyed critic is far more likely to home in on an infelicitous choice of phrase in a slim poetry collection than on, say, page 394 of a 600-page novel. This has been evident in the recent correspondence in the Guardian in the wake of reviews of Robin Fulton Macpherson’s new volume of Tranströmer interpretations. SBR salutes his willingness to stand up and be counted, and applauds him as a role model for the visibility of the translator at a time when reviews, even in serious publications, still depressingly often fail to credit translators at all.

Poetry is quite a focus in this brimming issue of SBR. Robin Fulton Macpherson is both reviewer and reviewed in the poetry-rich Bookshelf. We also present selections from a new poetry suite by Ingela Strandberg, translated by Göran Malmqvist. As for prose, it is a pleasure to include a heartfelt essay on Selma Lagerlöf’s classic The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by novelist and prolific reviewer Paul Binding, who in recent weeks has also penned a review of three new Selma Lagerlöf translations for the Times Literary Supplement.

We have perhaps neglected non-fiction of late, but that oversight is rectified in this issue, which features not only Klas Åmark’s Neighbour of Evil but also a substantial selection of non-fiction reviews. Åmark’s volume is the impressive summing up of a major multidisciplinary research project putting Sweden’s relations with the Third Reich under the microsope.

Returning to the visibility of the translator, we have a brief history of the first 25 years of SELTA, and a report from a workshop on translating the unique idiom of Jonas Hassen Khemiri. The visibility of the TV host is one theme of our extract from The World’s Last Novel, a mischievous yet painful self-analysis by Daniel Sjölin, prizewinning presenter of Swedish Television’s book programme Babel.

We hope you enjoy visiting our upgraded website. There are many improvements behind the scenes to streamline searches and updating, but the site also has something of a new look. A newly installed widget allows us to display the current month’s bestseller lists from Sweden (kindly provided by Svensk bokhandel).