November 24, 2020

Susan Beard shortlisted for Petrona Award 2020

Susan Beard has been shortlisted for the Petrona Award.

We are delighted by the news that SELTA member Susan Beard has been shortlisted for the 2020 Petrona Award for her translation of Stina Jackson’s ‘The Silver Road’ (published by Corvus). Susan’s translation is one of six titles to make it to the shortlist.

The Petrona Award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year. The award was established to celebrate the work of Maxine Clarke, one of the first online crime fiction reviewers and bloggers, who died in December 2012. Maxine, whose online persona and blog was called PETRONA, was passionate about translated crime fiction, but in particular that from the Scandinavian countries. SELTA member Neil Smith has won the Petrona Award on two previous occasions.

The winner will be announced on 3 December, with author and translator sharing a cash prize. Best of luck to Susan!

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November 20, 2020

Swedish Book Review launches new site

SELTA’s journal Swedish Book Review has launched its new website.

SELTA is pleased to share some happy news in these difficult times: the long-awaited new online Swedish Book Review is now live! The new website address is: swedishbookreview.org

Although the editorial team still have work to do in uploading SBR’s archive of material, which goes back to 2004, there is already an exciting collection of translated extracts, articles, interviews and book reviews from 2018 to 2020. The material for 2020 is all new and focusses on the theme of emerging voices in Swedish literature, including the debut authors who attended the SELTA seminar in Edinburgh last autumn.

Once more of SBR’s archive is in place, a new membership scheme will launch offering access to the full digital archive and all new issues, in addition to other member benefits. Membership of Swedish Book Review will remain part of the SELTA membership package in the same way that a subscription to the printed journal was in the past.

For the time being, stop by the new website and take a look!

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Sarah Death shortlisted for 2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation

Sarah Death has been shortlisted for the Warwick Prize.

We are delighted by the news that SELTA member Sarah Death has been shortlisted for the 2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for her translation of Tove Jansson’s ‘Letters from Tove’ (edited by Boel Westin & Helen Svensson, published by Sort of Books).

Sarah’s translation is one of seven titles to make it to the shortlist. The £1000 prize was established by the University of Warwick in 2017 to address the gender imbalance in translated literature and to increase the number of international women’s voices accessible by a British and Irish readership. In 2020 the prize is generously supported by the British Centre for Literary Translation and the British Comparative Literature Association.

The winner will be announced in an online award ceremony on Thursday 26 November. Best of luck to Sarah!

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Catch up on SELTA live event with literary agents

SELTA hosted a live virtual event with three guest speakers.

On 18 November, SELTA was delighted to be joined for a live event by three distinguished literary agents working in the Nordic region to find out about their pandemic year, and to gain a better understanding of what their work involves. Our invited speakers were Urpu Strellman (Helsinki Literary Agency), Judith Toth (Nordin Agency) and Sofie Voller (Politiken Literary Agency), all of whom represent Swedish-language authors and titles, as well as other Nordic writers. The panel was chaired by Alex Fleming (Editor, Swedish Book Review). The event was recorded and you can now catch up here.

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October 31, 2020

SELTA in Lockdown

SELTA has been continuing to hold events despite being unable to meet in person.

In March 2020, when many of us had been looking forward to the London Book Fair and the associated professional and social events that surround it, the fair was cancelled and the UK was plunged into lockdown. As translators, we are used to working in isolation but that doesn’t mean we aren’t in need of some human contact. SELTA has been continuing to hold events and provide a forum for conversation through the pandemic.

We held our Spring Meeting online on 1 May 2020. The formal part of the meeting was followed by a CPD event on “The Path Less Trodden: Different routes into translating Swedish literature” with guest speakers SELTA member Deborah Bragen-Turner, and Paul Norlen and Rachel Willson-Broyles in the US talking about how they got into their Swedish translation careers.

In July we held a virtual fikastund with talks by SELTA members Ruth Urbom and Alex Fleming on their other (not Swedish) translation languages and the impact this has on their work from Swedish.

In August we held our second virtual fikastund on Zoom with talks on the world of subtitling and translating for screen by SELTA members Kajsa von Hofsten and Alexander Keiller.

In November we held our AGM again via Zoom and on 18 November this was followed by a live event with Nordic literary agents. Watch the video here.

Besides being informative, educational and entertaining in their own right, these online events have provided a welcome opportunity to see our colleagues, to discuss how the pandemic is affecting us personally and professionally, and have offered an opportunity for members in more far-flung locations to attend who would not normally have been able to do so. With many translation events similarly being transferred online, 2020 has also given us the chance to attend virtual seminars and talks in a range of geographical locations and the SELTA google group is keeping everyone informed of everything going on online.

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October 7, 2020

Alice Menzies shortlisted for National Book Award for Translated Literature

SELTA member Alice Menzies shortlisted for the American National Book Foundation’s 2020 award for translated literature for her translation of Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s ‘The Family Clause’.

We are delighted by the news that SELTA member Alice Menzies has been shortlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the USA for her translation of Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s ‘The Family Clause’.

This was a good year for Swedish, with colleague Rachel Willson-Broyles (a member of our sister association in the US, STiNA), also making the longlist for her translation of Linda Boström Knausgård’s ‘The Helios Disaster’.

The 71st National Book Awards Ceremony will be streamed live on Wednesday 18 November via YouTube. The $10,000 prize for the winner is split evenly between the author and translator, while all shortlisted finalists share $1,000. We’ll be holding our thumbs for Alice and Jonas on the night!

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September 12, 2020

2019 Review by SELTA Chair Ian Giles

SELTA Chair Ian Giles sums up 2019 and looks ahead to 2020.

Our membership figures remain strong – there are currently 74 members of SELTA, an increase of 2 over last year. It’s gratifying to see that we continue to attract new members who recognise the benefits that SELTA offers, even in these changing times.

2019 was a relatively busy year for SELTA. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person to find London Book Fair exhausting, not least on the grounds of the considerable number of Swedish-related events that took place. As ever, we were grateful to Pia Lundberg (Cultural Counsellor at the Swedish Embassy in London) for hosting many of us for dinner, and to the Swedish Literature Exchange for covering the cost of admission to Olympia. It was also exciting that the Embassy pursued a new idea in the shape of its reception at the ambassadorial residence for publishers, agents, translators and others involved in the dissemination of Swedish literature to the UK. We have heard that this is likely to be repeated in 2020. I was glad to see so many familiar faces at our spring meeting which took place the day after LBF. There was plenty to discuss, but I think the element that caught the imagination of members was our discussion with invited guests Magdalena Hedlund (Hedlund Literary Agency) and Lena Stjernström (Grand Agency) who told us about their work as literary agents, with a focus on how books come to market abroad and the involvement of translators like us.

As is often the case, things were a little quieter during the summer season. I was fortunate enough to represent SELTA in a roundtable session in Vancouver with Ellen Kythor (Chair of DELT ) and Paul Norlen (President of STiNA) in which we discussed the role of translator networks in promoting Scandinavian books abroad. You can read my blog about the event here. This was (we think) the first time that SELTA and STiNA have appeared together in an official capacity. There was a significant degree of conversation around why we retain two separate organisations, and this was an issue we raised at the AGM in October and subsequently via the Google Group. It seems that as the translation market internationalises, we should continue to discuss and contemplate how we might bring the two bodies closer together.

The highlight of SELTA’s year – if I say so – was in late October when we gathered in Edinburgh for our AGM and a literary translation workshop. We had been fortunate enough to receive grants from both the Swedish Arts Council and the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation to support this initiative. In particular, I’m delighted at the positive feedback from both funders about not only the type of event we proposed, but also the location and general enthusiasm for translator-led initiatives. We were very pleased to welcome four Swedish-language authors to Edinburgh: Balsam Karam, Kayo Mpoyi, Joel Mauricio Isabel Ortiz, and Adrian Perara. Not only did we have an enjoyable public event – our speed bookclub gathering, but I think we had a very fruitful day-long workshop. It was especially good to see so many new faces in attendance. I appreciated the positive feedback from those who attended – and hopefully we will be able to do something again soon (although perhaps in 2021 to give your Chair some breathing space!).

There was also some exciting news during November when Peirene Press announced that the Peirene-Stevns Prize for 2020 would be in Swedish. At the time of writing, entries are still being accepted from translators of Swedish who have not yet had a full-length literary translation published. The winner will receive a paid commission to translate Andrea Lundgren’s Nordisk fauna as well as a retreat in the French Pyrenees. The winner will be mentored by SELTA member Sarah Death.

SELTA members always tend to do well on the awards circuit and this year was no different. We were thrilled to hear just a week ago that one of SELTA’s founder members, Tom Geddes, has been awarded the Swedish Academy’s ‘pris för introduktion av svensk kultur utomlands’.

This year also saw the award of the 2018 Bernard Shaw Prize, the triennial prize handed to the best Swedish translation. The prize went to Frank Perry for his translation of Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs by Lina Wolff (And Other Stories), while Deborah Bragan-Turner was runner up for her translation of The Parable Book by Per Olov Enquist (MacLehose Press). Indeed, the other two names on the shortlist also came from SELTA’s ranks on this occasion. It has long been the feeling of successive SELTA committees that the prize requires an overhaul. Following in-depth correspondence with Nicola Solomon, the CEO of the Society of Authors (responsible for managing the prize), we engaged in dialogue with various stakeholders about this. While we are already in the cycle for the next prize (to be awarded in 2022), the hope is that the subsequent award of the Bernard Shaw will take place just two years later, and will feature a larger prize fund. Naturally, this is all funding-contingent!

We were all overjoyed for SELTA member Deborah Bragan-Turner, whose translation of Sara Stridsberg’s The Faculty of Dreams was longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. This was the first time a Swedish title had made the longlist, and it drew attention to a very worthy book.

This year the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger (formerly known as the International Dagger) very thoughtlessly didn’t award the prize to a Swedish title, but we were still pleased to see Sarah Death shortlisted for her translation of Håkan Nesser’s The Root of Evil, and Annie Prime longlisted for her translation of Martin Holmén’s Slugger.

Those of you who have attended recent meetings or read the minutes, as well as the emails from Deborah Bragan-Turner, will be aware that times are changing for our journal, Swedish Book Review. You will have received a double issue in the form of 2019:1-2 back in the summer, which was the result of the very hard work put in by Deborah, the team at Norvik Press and all the contributors. Regrettably, this is likely to be the last time a regular print issue is published in this form. A working group was formed in the spring to develop proposals for SBR’s future. We are pleased to have received a one-off grant from the Swedish Arts Council to enable us to overhaul the SBR website with the intention of going fully digital and open access. We are currently in the process of seeking additional funding to support a first issue in the new iteration covering the themes we addressed in our Edinburgh workshop.

In 2020, the London Book Fair remains in its earlier slot of March, and will take place on 10-12 March. Hopefully I will see many of you there for the usual, fruitful networking opportunities the event provides. Cut the Cord are organising a Nordic Theatre Festival in London during March. Similarly, the Stanza poetry festival in St Andrews has a Nordic focus for 2020. Pardaad Chamsaz at the British Library is also organising an event about Nordic comics on Friday 13 March.

We expect to hold our SELTA spring meeting in London in late April or early May (date tbc). More details on this will follow with plenty of notice.

Best wishes for the new year ahead!

Dr Ian Giles

Chair of SELTA

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November 12, 2019

Diversity and the Power Balance of Language

Sophie Ruthven looks at diversity through Adrian Perera’s book Mamma at our Edinburgh workshop.

Sophie Ruthven is an emerging literary translator of Swedish living in Innsbruck. She joined us for our translation workshop in Edinburgh.

A certain playfulness is required to sling possible Anglophone versions of kärring around a table with enthusiasm, and the group of often-solitary translators were certainly not left laughter- free at SELTA’s literary translation workshop in Edinburgh. Yet the duty of giving a text to a new linguistic audience is anything but light, and when the author has allowed their debut novel to be dissected (however lovingly) by a team of both experienced literary translators and those of us who are curious starters to the literary side of things, a lot of weight rests on picking the correct language. Even if the workshop is exploratory, even if the notion of completing the translation is purely hypothetical. Translators have a certain power which can be misused, and when the source text presents problems of power balance inherent in the use of different languages, we have to solve puzzles to the best of our ability.

Cover of Mama by Adrian Perera depicting Jesus with a broken heart

Then again, can we always realistically carry out our task? This question arose during a workshop with the Finland-Swedish author Adrian Perera and his novel Mamma, one of whose characters is a multilingual mother living in Swedish-speaking Finland, viewed through the eyes of her son, Tony. We translators fell into what we do best: we zoomed in on the micro details of a text, sometimes losing sight of the text as a whole in the process. Though in the case of the extract from Mamma, we weren’t necessarily tying ourselves in knots over a curious adjective which didn’t sing in the English translation, rather the challenge of rendering a Swedish work in English, when the broken English of the protagonist Tony’s immigrant mother (spoken alongside Sinhala and Finnish), is, both in itself and its quality, a crucial part of the text, an indicator of both class and cultural difference, in a Swedish-speaking area of Finland. That’s a lot of layers of linguistic minority/majority interplay. There are footnotes which give clarity to grammatically problematic utterances, also serving to keep the narrative along the lines of Tony’s understanding. We considered adding some in to explain linguistic nuance, but then again, it would seem a shame to turn the book into a ‘Primer for Swedish Finland’, which would be both incorrect and potentially unreadable.

In his presentation of Mamma, Perera had floated the idea that no interpreter exists who doesn’t draw on something else with their interpretations, as all reality is inherently subjective. With the reader as the interpreter of the text after the translator has presented it to them in the reader’s own language: if the whole text is rendered in English, will the resultant invisibility of the English and foreign-ification of the Swedish parts disrupt the power-balance of the novel? Would an English reader judge the mother’s broken language in the same way as they would judge the doctor’s with whom she speaks’? Such a scene could be clearly read by a Finland Swede, but may become just a tangle of many Othernesses to an English language reader. The diversity which we wish to present to the new audience may end up simply invisible to that audience. Any good workshop often throws up more questions than answers, though it’s curious to be stumped over whether something can be translated at all.

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November 6, 2019

SELTA’s Speed Bookclub and Workshop in Edinburgh

Catherine Venner reports back on SELTA’s literary translation events in Edinburgh in the autumn of 2019.

Catherine Venner is a translator of German based in Durham. However, she has a sideline in Swedish and became an Associate Member of SELTA in 2018. SELTA’s Edinburgh workshop offered her the chance to get her feet wet with colleagues working in Swedish-English.

At the end of October, I travelled north to Edinburgh for a very special event: I was going to the SELTA Emerging Voices literary translation workshop and Swedish Speed Bookclub. It was to be my first time attending any SELTA event, so I had been looking forward to it with a mixture of curiosity and a little nervousness, not to mention the fact that I had no idea what a Speed Bookclub was!

As it turns out Speed Bookclub is a fantastic way of getting to know books and their authors in a more informal setting. SELTA had invited four authors; Balsam Karam, Adrian Perera, Kayo Mpoyi and Joel Mauricio Isabel Ortiz to attend the Speed Bookclub and workshop. They are all debut novelists whose work has not yet been translated into English, so members of SELTA provided handy translations of excerpts from each novel so that the Speed Bookclub was accessible to everyone whether you read Swedish or not.

As participants, we separated into small groups of four or five and visited each author and translator at their table for about 20 minutes before moving on to the next table. Although I had initially felt slightly daunted by the prospect of such an intimate setting with the authors, they and the translators were happy to fill us in on the synopsis of their books and to talk about the general themes running through their work. The authors, translators and participants enjoyed chatting about these topics so much that there was often a reluctance to stop when it was time to move on to the next table. Having visited many book presentations and panels before, the Speed Bookclub was a refreshing change that offers people like me, who feel very self-conscious asking questions in front of an audience, the chance to have my curiosity about the novels satisfied in a friendly and relaxed setting. The conversations and ideas carried on into the following wine reception sponsored by the Scandinavian Studies Section at the University of Edinburgh.

 

The next morning, we met bright and early at 9 o’clock in the rooms back at the university to start our translation workshops. In attendance were not only members of SELTA, but also students, members of the public and translators from other Scandinavian languages, who were all curious to learn more about the challenges of translating the “emerging voices” of our four authors. After a fascinating presentation about diversity in literature by Anja Tröger, the morning workshops began with Balsam Karam and Adrian Perera presenting their novels. Balsam’s “Event Horizon”, driven by her love of astronomy, illustrates the problems facing social outcasts whatever the place and time, while Adrian’s “Mama” set in 90s Swedish speaking Finland is designed as a horror story about what happens when there is no common language. We then split into two groups, each with one of the authors, to discuss the novels and translation excerpts in more detail.

After a lovely lunch and some good chats among the participants, the afternoon session kicked off with Kayo Mpoyi and Joel Mauricio Isabel Ortiz introducing us to their work. Kayo’s “Mai Means Water” is based upon the myths told in her family, while Joel’s “A Story of a Son” is an exploration of how bad things can get and is definitely not autobiographical. The following workshops with the authors provided valuable feedback about how they as authors would like to see their work presented in another language and how, as a translator, you can sometimes set off on the wrong track and only realise it right at the end.

Before we knew it, the workshops were over and we were all heading back to our various homes across the country and beyond. As a first-timer, I absolutely loved attending this event, meeting the friendly and welcoming members of SELTA and taking part in extremely interesting workshops that provided input for translation whatever your working languages (for the sake of full disclosure, I should also add that I am actually a German translator, who reads and loves Scandinavian languages). To conclude, I would like to thank Ian for organising such a wonderful event, the authors for their input on our translations and everyone who helped make this an absolutely wonderful event.

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July 27, 2019

The Symbiotic Relationship between Editor and Translator

In June 2019, SELTA member Tom Ellett attended a workshop run by the Association of Danish-English Literary Translators (DELT).

DELT, the recently formed association for Danish to English literary translators, organised a very successful (and welcome) event in Scotland in late June. Sponsored by the Danish Arts Foundation, the event took place at the University of Edinburgh and was hosted by the Scandinavian Studies section of the Department of European Languages and Cultures.

As professional development opportunities for Scandinavian translators are a rare occurrence north of the Border, I was sorry that a prior engagement prevented me from attending the first part of the event, a hands-on translation and editing workshop. By all accounts, this seems to have been a fascinating and productive experience, even for translators working mainly from Swedish and Norwegian rather than Danish.

I made it to Edinburgh in time for the second part of the event, a panel discussion on the symbiotic relationship between editors and translators. The proceedings were ably chaired by Kari Dickson, a prolific Norwegian to English translator based in Edinburgh, and there were three panel members: James Robertson, a Scots author, translator and publisher; Carolina Orloff, founder and editor of Charco Press, an Edinburgh publisher specialising in translations of Latin American literature; and Daniel Hahn, a writer, editor, translator from Portuguese, Spanish and French, and former chair of the Society of Authors and the Translators Association.

Kari Dickson got the discussion under way by noting that she loves both editing and being edited. The panel members agreed that they had learned from being on both sides of the editing process – both from having a fresh pair of eyes review their own work, and from editing the work of other translators and seeing how they had tackled various challenges.

Editor as beta tester

The consensus was that good editors do not try to impose their own style on the translation, by rewriting every sentence as they would have translated it, but make only those changes that are strictly necessary to eliminate errors and infelicities. Daniel Hahn drew a memorable analogy with the software development business, describing the editor as a ‘beta reader’. One of the best editors he had worked with had once told him (and I paraphrase): ‘All I’m saying is that I noticed this, and this, and this … and if I noticed these things, the chances are that other readers will too.’

A regular collaboration arrangement where two translators working in the same language pair review and edit each other’s work is perhaps the gold standard. James Robertson cited the example of his partnership with Matthew Fitt, his co-founder at Itchy Coo, an imprint publishing books in Scots for children and young adults. James considered himself prone to taking excessive liberties with the source text, which would be reined in by Matthew at the editing stage. Conversely, when Matthew as translator had taken an overly conservative approach, James as editor would encourage him to think outside the box.

#NameTheEditor

Carolina Orloff remarked that editors were the invisible, unsung heroes of the publishing business. While translators as a profession had managed to win greater recognition for their work in recent years, it was still rare for editors to be credited. Daniel Hahn said this was why the TA First Translation Prize, which he had established in 2017, was to be shared between the translator and their editor.

On the perennial question of whether the editor needs to know the source language, the panellists’ opinions and experiences varied. Bilingual editors were naturally more likely to pick up on any misunderstandings of the source text, but might be more inclined to unnecessary rewriting to make the translation more ‘faithful’. Monolingual editors, focused wholly on the reader’s experience in the target language, might be more alert to infelicities resulting from source language interference.

In an amusing digression on the subject of editors’ foreign language skills, James Robertson mentioned that commissioning editors and rights agents from other European countries tended to be more receptive than their English colleagues to the idea of publishing translations into Scots – perhaps because they had encountered other examples of closely related but distinct languages in regions such as Scandinavia and the Iberian peninsula.

Pre-empt questions

Although the panel’s experiences of editing and being edited were generally positive, they also shared a few horror stories. Daniel Hahn said that, when he delivers a translation, he also sends a covering letter or email in which he explains his choice of voice, register and vocabulary, and his approach to any particular challenges the translation has thrown up. This helps to pre-empt some questions and overzealous editing, and may reduce the risk of being paired with an incompatible editor.

After an hour and a half of free-flowing discussion, it was time to vacate the room. The panellists and most of the 35 audience members adjourned to the adjacent hallway for refreshments, networking and more lively conversations about translation and editing.

DELT’s own blog post about the event can be read here.

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July 20, 2019

Meet the Publisher – Finding out how Hachette publish books

In early July, the publishing group Hachette ran an afternoon session about how books are published. SELTA Chair Ian Giles was there and has written this report.

In early July, the publishing group Hachette hosted members of the Society of Authors who had previously been published by the group and its imprints (whether as authors, illustrators or translators) for an afternoon event on how books are published at its beautiful headquarters on the Thames, just round the corner from Blackfriars station.

Billed as ‘Meet the Publisher’, the session promised attendees that they would find out about all aspects of a typical book cycle and have the chance to ask plenty of questions, as well as networking with Hachette’s great and good afterwards. The participants included Hachette CEO David Shelley, Ruth Alltines (MD of Hachette Children’s), Jamie Hodder-Williams (CEO of Hodder, Headline, Quercus and JMP & Director of Trade Publishing), Nick Davies (MD of John Murray Press) and Diane Spivey, the group contracts director. Chairing proceedings was the SoA’s Chief Executive Nicola Solomon.

The panelists first discussed how a book is chosen. It was noted by several that although Hachette acquire a lot of titles (around 6,000 per annum), the vast majority of titles they consider are ultimately not acquired. However, there was an emphasis on the fact that acquiring titles was a dedicated, detailed group effort that involved multiple members of staff from a range of specialisms being consulted before a decision was made. In particular, the speakers were keen to emphasise that acquisitions were not solely sales-led, and that costing on projects was actually something that took place much later in the process. Instead, the greatest importance was on finding titles that fitted the list.

There was a focus on how rights were negotiated on contracts, with Diane Spivey stressing that contracts should always seek to cover all elements of payment and which rights were and were not being granted. One interesting nugget to come out of the discussions about contracting books was the discovery that the contracts team, at least at Hachette, are responsible for creating the metadata relating to a title. The resolve to include a translator in a book’s metadata consequently resides with the contracts team. More generally, the contracts team provide advice to acquiring editors who are unfamiliar with the process. In this regard, it would seem that no matter how virgin a buyer an editor is – even of translations – they should have suitable advice available to them in-house. There was also an explicit acknowledgement that an initial contract is always considered to be a draft and that there is room for negotiation over most issues, although Hachette has firm lines in the sand on certain matters and rights.

Discussion moved on to other elements of the Hachette operations, including details about its new distribution centre in Didcot, which cost a ‘high eight-figure sum’ to construct and is capable of distributing one million books every day. There was also an explanation of what Hachette does for older books in its lists, with a focus on enhancing searchability of titles and improving metadata so that customers can still find them and buy them.

There were a couple of questions from the audience relating to how the process works when applied specifically to translated titles. In general, dealing with foreign literary agents was deemed a rarity (and it was noted that many countries simply don’t have any), with publishers often choosing to look and see what their ‘partner’ publishers abroad were acquiring. None of the panelists had experience with translations, but they had consulted Katharina Bielenberg of MacLehose Press beforehand. The reported response was that many acquisitions were done on the basis of trust and long-term relationships with foreign publishers and authors.

MacLehose Press publishes about 30 books per year, and takes a cautious approach to acquisitions. Apparently, they frequently commission two or three reader’s reports on a title before buying rights, and will often commission a paid sample from a translator before finalising that decision too. Once again, the element of trust-based relationships was emphasised in the process of finding translators.

Other questions from the audience were interesting and diverse, including queries on whether existing children’s writers could make the jump to adult fiction (or vice versa) within the Hachette umbrella, promotional strategies for educational titles, and how to keep track of royalties on old titles where digitalisation of records might be wanting.

Soon time was up, however, and there was an opportunity for networking over a glass of wine in the lovely roof garden on top of Hachette’s offices. While the event was largely not translation-focused, it still offered a lot of insights into the workings of the industry that were helpful. Perhaps the most useful element was the discussion of contracts (both during the session and afterwards). Most pleasant was the humanising element of making the creators and the commissioners seem like normal people to each other. If Hachette (or another publisher) runs a similar event with the Society of Authors in future, I would strongly recommend that SELTA members consider attending.

PS from SELTA member Anna Paterson, who also attended:

Because I’m translating a book for one of the Hachette imprints, I was there on the day or, rather, afternoon/early evening. I thoroughly agree with Ian’s account; as he says, ‘the humanising element’ was important. The event seems to have been an initiative organised by the young and driven CEO. It is a pity that not many more of ‘The Creatives’ had taken the opportunity to meet ‘The Publishers’ on a slightly business-oriented terms than usual.

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June 25, 2019

A Meeting of Scandinavian Literary Translators’ Networks: Chairs on Chairs

SELTA Chair Ian Giles reports from an event in Vancouver featuring three Scandinavian literary translators’ networks.

In early June, something very exciting happened on the lush 420 acre University of British Columbia campus in Vancouver. Three Scandinavian literary translators’ networks met in one place to consider the vital role they play in the field, to discuss the trajectory of the literary translation field, and to network with fellow translators, academics and other interested stakeholders. Playing host to this was the annual Association for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies in Canada conference, which has long been a draw for translators and scholars in North America and further afield.

The Swedish-Eglish Literary Translators’ Association (SELTA) was founded in the UK in 1982 and has since served the interests of its members – practicing, professional literary translators – as well as promoting Swedish-language literature to the English-speaking world through its house journal Swedish Book Review. Swedish Translators in North America (STiNA) was established in 2004 to represent the interests of literary translators of Swedish working in the USA and Canada. The Association of Danish-English Literary Translators (DELT) is very much the new kid on the (Scandinavian literary translation) block, having been first established as a network in 2014 before forming a full association in 2018. The three organisations come from different backgrounds, but all fulfil important roles in representing Scandinavian literary culture abroad.

The three organisations were represented in Vancouver by Ian Giles (SELTA), Ellen Kythor (DELT), and Paul Norlen (STiNA), while Natalie van Deusen (Associate Professor in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Alberta), very kindly chaired the session, initially guiding conversation before managing questions from the audience.

Initially, the assembled panellists discussed the origins of their own organisations. While SELTA emerged through the initiative of a cultural attaché at the Swedish Embassy in London in the early 1980s working in partnership with a number of UK-based translators, it was noted that over the subsequent years it was frequently the journal Swedish Book Review that had acted as the glue of the association, while regular meetings in person and workshops also ensured regular contact and professional development. STiNA was founded in 2004 by a group of North American translators looking to replicate elements of the SELTA model and build their own network. In contrast to SELTA, STiNA does not have a house journal (although its members are also frequent contributors to SBR) and members rarely meet in person due to the large distances involved. Paul Norlen described how informal STiNA gatherings would typically take place on the fringes of bigger meetings such as ALTA (the American Literary Translators Association). DELT, meanwhile, so far sits somewhere between the two in practice, by seeking to represent translators globally, although its activities have focused primarily on the UK, Denmark and North America. In its early outings, DELT has been particularly keen to enable networking between translators and to offer hands-on workshops.

Unsurprisingly, it was clear from the discussion that the way in which members used their respective networks differed in some regards. SELTA has been making effective use of its private Google Group for members for a decade, while STiNA operates with a mailing list. Both organisations also pass on occasional work-related inquiries to the membership. DELT members communicate via its own Facebook group, encouraging most dissemination of information to take place there. All three panellists agreed that two of the most common things the networks were used for – and shared in common – were that members turned to them for assistance with particularly thorny terminological issues, and to pass on work to other members when busy. Another area where the emergence of online networks seemed to be helpful for all three organisations was in supporting emerging translators. The ability to offer advice to new members of the profession online was something all three agreed was a huge plus.

As conversation turned to the state of the industry more generally, it was noted that it is unusual to find networks like SELTA, STiNA or DELT in non-Scandinavian language combinations. This seems to be partly because of the generous support that is provided by the Nordic countries for the dissemination of their literature abroad and to assist translators from their languages, but also because there is (reputedly) a more collegial, less competitive atmosphere amongst translators of the Scandinavian languages. There was a sense as the subject was discussed that the situation for literary translation of Scandinavian languages to English remains strong, and all were hopeful it would continue to be so. It was observed that all three organisations have experienced an influx of younger and newer members of the profession in recent years and that this is promising sign that the industry is doing well.

The audience had a number of eager questions, including why books appear in British or American English (or sometimes something in between!) and who makes that decision, whether literary translators tended to solely work on literary texts or whether they also work on other ‘commercial’ texts, as well as what reading tips the panellists had. As so often happens, time had run out and the assembled audience moved on to a networking reception in the adjacent auditorium where they got the chance to discuss translation-related matters slightly more informally.

All in all, it was a very fruitful panel. Bridges were built between not only translators of Danish and Swedish, their readers, and scholars of Scandinavian Studies, but also between translators of Swedish across the Atlantic – this was the first time that SELTA and STiNA have ever met in an official capacity. There was a strong sense amongst all three participants that further collaboration in future can only be helpful to the aims of those working in the field of Scandinavian-English literary translation. Watch this space…

Many thanks to AASSC for hosting us, and to Natalie van Deusen and Christine Ekholst for their hard work in facilitating the roundtable as part of the conference programme. Further thanks go to Statens Kunstfond and Swedish Literature Exchange for their generous support of the event, as well as to the engaged and enthusiastic audience of conference delegates and guests.

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January 4, 2019

2018 in Review

SELTA’s new Chair Ian Giles looks back at 2018.

As you settle down to watch Dinner for One, I would like to thank you for another year of gott samarbete in SELTA.

Our membership figures remain strong – there are currently 72 members of SELTA. As I noted at the AGM in November, it’s especially reassuring that so many of our active members are at the beginning of their careers as literary translators.

2018 was a little quieter than 2017. It was great to see many familiar faces throughout the week during the London Book Fair at networking events, at the dinner and at our spring meeting. The panel of speakers at our spring meeting (Anna Blasiak, Ted Hodgkinson and Crystal Mahey-Morgan) provided plenty of food for thought about programming literary events. For the first time in several years, we held a SELTA event without the crutch of a nearby meeting in September with our back-to-basics workshop looking at non-fiction. Turnout was good and participants enthusiastic – this is hopefully something we will do again in future. I was thrilled to see such a high turn out for our AGM in November, with lively discussion ensuing as a result. We were also pleased to rekindle our relationship with the Scandinavian collection at the British Library as we welcomed Pardaad Chamsaz, curator of the Germanic Collections, to our meeting to tell us about the library’s resources.

SELTA members always tend to do well on the awards circuit and this year was no different. This year the Crime Writers’ Association awarded their International Dagger prize to Marlaine Delargy’s translation of After the Fire by Henning Mankell. Michael Gallagher’s translation of Mattias Boström’s From Holmes to Sherlock won the 2018 Agatha Award for nonfiction. Meanwhile, Peter Graves’ translation of Jakob Wegelius’ The Murderer’s Ape won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award.

SELTA members and Swedish literature did well on shortlists and longlists too. Annie Prime and Neil Smith both featured on the International Dublin Literary Award list of nominees for 2019. Peter Graves and Fiona Graham both had translations included on the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation longlist. In the world of crime, Sarah Death, Marlaine Delargy and Saskia Vogel were all shortlisted for the 2018 Petrona Award (pipped at the post by our STiNA colleague Rachel Willson-Broyles).

In 2019, the London Book Fair takes place a little earlier than usual on 12-14 March. Hopefully I will see many of you there for the usual, fruitful networking opportunities the event provides. We will hold our SELTA spring meeting in London (date tbc) while we hope to hold our AGM in combination with a workshop event in Edinburgh in the autumn. More details on this will follow with plenty of notice

Best wishes for the new year ahead!

Ian Giles
Chair of SELTA

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November 2, 2018

The Art of Translating Stereotypes – A SELTA Workshop

SELTA member Joanna Flower reviews SELTA’s translation workshop held on 19 September 2018.

Konsten att göra intryck: Angela Ahola, (Natur & Kultur, 2016)

In September 2018, a group of SELTA members met at the Swedish Embassy in London to discuss how to translate an extract from a non-fiction book, Konsten att göra intryck (The Art of Making an Impression, Natur & Kultur 2016) by Dr. Angela Ahola, a psychologist and popular motivational speaker in Sweden.

Dr Ahola’s book, which has not yet been translated into English, emphasizes the importance of the first impression, an instinct that has been handed down to us by our ancestors from thousands of years ago, when a positive or negative first impression could be a matter of life and death – is that man standing there in front of me with a knife, a friend or foe? Who should I fear? Who can I trust?

The extract selected for discussion at the SELTA workshop concerned stereotypes and how they unconsciously affect our day-to-day perceptions of others. A number of participants had translated the 800-odd words in advance, and these English versions formed the basis for the exchange of views on the thorny issues arising from the text.

Localisation

A preliminary point was the question of localisation; if it were to be translated into English, how would this book be positioned?  Who would be the target audience? The extract under consideration was very much geared towards a Swedish audience, so a translator would have to make decisions on various fundamental linguistic and cultural questions right from the outset. For example, the narrative of the book is structured around the pronoun vi (“we”), a construction very common in Swedish texts, but much less so in English. Should this Swedish-style narrative device be retained in the English, or might a different approach be preferable? If so, what?

The book uses examples of scenarios that are very much entrenched in Swedish culture, and employs references and stereotypes that English language readers may not understand. Should those cultural references by kept in the English, in the expectation that, for example, this book would appeal to the recent British appetite for all things Scandinavian, with a title such as: “The Art of Making Impressions the Swedish Way”? If so, the translator may want to retain some of the Swedish elements of the text. If not, alternatives would have to be found.

In this text the voice of the motivational speaker comes through clearly on the page and it was agreed that it is aimed at lay people with no expertise in psychology, reading for general interest and for tips on how to become more aware of the environment and of their own, as well as others’, behaviour.

Sex and gender

Dr. Ahola’s text includes the gender-neutral pronoun hen, the use of which has become commonplace since being included in the Swedish Academy’s authoritative glossary on the Swedish Language in 2015. This pronoun is very specifically gender-neutral, and can be used to refer to a person who does not wish to be designated a specific gender. Should hen be translated as “he or she”, “she or he”, “s/he” or “they”? There was a general view that “they” is preferable here, given that it is rather less cumbersome than the other alternatives, and reflects the neatness of hen, even if it side-steps that new pronoun’s very specific and pointed gender-neutrality.

There was also some debate on how to translate kön. Should this be “sex” or “gender”? And did it matter? The argument was made that “sex” was most appropriate as the discussion focused on stereotypes, and the basic fact of whether a person is male or female in and of itself gives rise to stereotypes. On the other hand, “gender” was considered to be a more inclusive term that covered a wider set of connotations than simply the biological sex of the relevant person; and the term “gender” seems to be used more frequently than “sex” today.

Cultural stereotypes

Dr. Ahola illustrates her comments with two mini case studies, which gave rise to a number of cultural and social issues for the translators to consider.

The first case study concerns your new work colleague, Ronaldo, who comes from Brazil. Your unconscious stereotype image of people from Brazil is that they love football and dancing, but Ronaldo loves neither, and there is a description of Ronaldo being dragged on to the dance floor at an office party and being painfully embarrassed by the whole experience. You explain away his unusual behaviour by telling yourself that he was undoubtedly born with rhythm, but that he must have lost it thanks to living in Sweden: Vi här i Norden har ju inte samma tradition, tanker du. This sentence was variously translated around the basic meaning: “Here in Scandinavia we don’t have the same tradition, you think”.

Again, the starting point was localisation. If the translator has decided to domesticate the text to a significant degree, such that the narrative is squarely set within an English speaking environment for the British market, she or he may consider localizing the examples in the book in Britain. Given UK immigration requirements and restrictions, it might be unlikely that a worker from Brazil would find her or himself in this office environment in the UK. It would perhaps be preferable to use an example of a different nationality to illustrate the same point.  By the same token, what might work as a credible and resonant example for the British market might not work in another English language context, such as a global or transatlantic audience.

Another issue of debate was how to translate the word Norden. Although this is formally translated as “the Nordic countries” (namely, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), it is colloquially used in Sweden to refer just to Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and therefore “Scandinavia” would be a more accurate choice here. However, this ties in again with the target audience. If the decision has been taken to market this book as part of the British Swedophile mood and to position it as a guide to how-to-make-a-good-impression-the-Swedish-way, then retaining a reference to the Nordic countries/Scandinavia, together with the inclusive “we” would seem appropriate. If, however, it has been decided to domesticate the text so that it is a how-to-make-a-good-impression-in-general book, it would be best to remove the reference to the region entirely. Another approach would be to make a broad distinction between north and south, for example by contrasting Brazil with, for example, “Northern Europe” or “the Northern hemisphere”. Again, it shows the importance of determining quite clearly in advance precisely for whom this book is intended, in its translated form.

The second mini case study concerns your new friend, Sten-Ove, who represents a specific type of Swedish stereotype. He is from Norrland, and you meet him on a ferry to Finland.

Finlandskryssning (literally, “Finland crossing”) refers to the boats that travel non-stop from Sweden to Finland and back again so that the passengers can stock up on cheap alcohol. A number of the translators used the term “booze cruise”. It was suggested that British readers would associate this term with the cheap trips from the south coast of England to France in the days when there was duty free shopping between the two countries.  The Sweden/Finland booze cruise is quite a specific cultural phenomenon. The boats used for these trips are like enormous floating parties, with numerous bars and discos on board, so the phrase “booze cruise” may not encompass the connotations involved in the Nordic experience.

The region of Norrland is the most northerly part of Sweden, a vast area which includes Swedish Lapland. The stereotype of someone from this region will of course be familiar to Swedish readers, but it is highly unlikely that this stereotype will resonate with an English speaker. Again, if the text is being translated as part of a “taste of Swedish life” genre, then an example like this will undoubtedly be interesting to an English reader who wants to know more about Sweden, or the “Swedish” way of doing things. In that case, the translator might well include a little more information about Norrland.

If, however, this text is being domesticated, then perhaps this example simply doesn’t work here. The point of these case studies is to trigger in the reader’s mind an unconscious image. If further information needs to be given to explain the sort of image that should emerge with this trigger, then one of the functions of the text will, arguably, be undermined. It may be preferable to replace Sten-Ove and/or Norrland with a stereotype that will speak much more clearly to an English reader.

It is possible to employ national rather than regional stereotypes, avoiding the potential risk of offending certain readers in a British market: The notion of a rather stiff and polite German, used by one translator, instantly triggers in a British mind a classic national stereotype, which is something of a jokey, broad-brush collective approach to another nation. It was generally felt that this approach was preferable to trying to find a regional stereotype from within the UK.

There was some discussion of whether, despite the current fashion for all things Scandinavian, the English-speaking reader would recognize the stereotype of Swedish reticence or reserve. Some considered that the British have a very positive view of Swedes in general, and wondered whether a less positive national stereotype would be more appropriate in this particular scenario.

A natural consequence of changing the regional Swedish stereotype to a national stereotype is that many of the details of the case study would also need to be amended; for example, the German is thought to be “stern, humourless, hard-working and reliable”, whereas the stereotype of Sten-Ove is  “calm, laid-back, pleasant and reliable”. In one translation the action takes place in a British pub rather than on a party boat, and in another, Sten-Ove’s hyperactive exuberance is explained away by his enjoyment of a holiday in the sun. For some, this was a step too far, though it was agreed that if this approach were to be adopted in a real scenario, the point ought to be raised with the author/publisher to highlight the difficulties attached to culturally specific case studies like this.

A non-fiction work on psychology is at first glance a rather unusual brief for discussion by a group of literary translators, but the rich and wide-ranging debate on numerous questions that emerged during the workshop shows that the practice of translation is a constantly demanding one that requires an intense engagement and critical reading of any text, whatever the genre. As always, the practice of doing and then comparing and discussing was a highly stimulating and interesting exercise for the translators.

There are many different ways to make an impression. As the in-depth discussions over this short extract showed, translating is the art of considering as many ways as possible to do it.

Many thanks to the Swedish Embassy for providing a venue for this workshop.

The rights to the book are available from Maria Enberg at The Enberg Agency.

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June 4, 2018

Stockholm International Comics Festival 2018

SELTA Chair Ruth Urbom is back from the Stockholm International Comics Festival at Kulturhuset with this report.

Not even the warm weekend sunshine could keep comics fans away from the cultural offerings at this year’s Stockholm International Comics Festival at Kulturhuset, the arts venue in the city centre, in early May. This year’s special focus was on Japanese comics, and there were guest artists and academics in attendance from several other countries including the Czech Republic, Finland, Poland and Spain. In addition to a packed schedule of panel talks and artist interviews – all free of charge to attend – the première of a documentary profiling a handful of Swedish comic artists rounded out the on-site programme. Those with an appetite for even more could explore a satellite programme of book launches, Japanese animated film screenings and gallery exhibitions around Stockholm.

Fans could stock up on books at Swedish comics publishers’ stands, and many author/artists were on hand to sign their works. Not content to simply sign the title page, many comic artists like to add a unique sketch or doodle to their dedication for an extra-special touch. Perhaps the buzziest atmosphere was to be found at the independent comics market, where indie artists could rent a table to showcase and sell their self-published comics and zines as well as postcards and other merch.

Many of today’s Swedish comic artists got their start at the Comic Art School or in dedicated courses at the University of Malmö in southern Sweden. In 2005 a group of independent comic artists formed Dotterbolaget, a collective dedicated to promoting their work and supporting new and emerging women artists.

Official festival image drawn by Åsa Ekström

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Lars Norén – Print Room at the Coronet, London

SELTA member Kevin Halliwell reviews The Print Room at the Coronet’s welcome production of two short plays by Lars Norén. Act and Terminal 3 are directed by Anthony Nielson and translated from the Swedish by Marita Lindholm Gochman.

Act and Terminal 3

directed by Anthony Nielson, translated from the Swedish by Marita Lindholm Gochman. 1 – 30 June 2018

Lars Norén has a solid following across Europe and, to some extent, the United States, but his work has struggled to find the same exposure and recognition in the UK. The Print Room at the Coronet’s June 2018 production of two short Norén plays, Act and Terminal 3, is therefore particularly welcome.

Act centres on a power struggle between a hunger-striking terrorist and the doctor tasked with assessing her.  The piece was originally set in post-war Germany, with clear echoes of Ulrike Meinhof (the prisoner is simply named “M”), but for this production director Anthony Nielsen has updated the action to a dystopian America in the aftermath of some unspecified civil war.

The Coronet’s cavernous stage provides the perfect backdrop for Laura Hopkins’ post-apocalyptic set – a clutter of Coke cans, stockpiled toilet rolls, US and Confederate flags hanging forlornly, neon strip lights and a basic builder’s inspection lamp for physical examinations – all under the impassive gaze of a large crucifix.

In this desolate place, M and the physician G (Temi Wilkey and Barnaby Power) engage in a verbal combat in which each will try to destabilise the other, the prisoner often gaining the upper hand. How does she know so much about him and why do the facts keep shifting? Is what we are witnessing real or are we experiencing the hallucinations of M’s sleep-deprived mind?

What is undoubtedly real, however, is torture and the complicity of the State (then as now) in its execution. G’s homely Southern-states drawl belies a fierce determination as his assault on an already badly wounded arm provokes a terrible cry of pain that pierces the auditorium.

Following the interval, Terminal 3 opens with a giant screen that divides the space into two halves containing a young couple, He and She (Robert Stocks and Temi Wilkey) who are expecting their first child, and an older couple, Man and Woman (Barnaby Power and Hannah Young), who have come to identify their dead son. The space, which we are told is called “C” – or in a typical example of Norén’s comedic flippancy, “maybe ‘O’ with a bit missing” – thus doubles as a kind of waiting room for a maternity wing and a morgue respectively.

As their stories gradually overlap and intertwine, we become aware that this is one and the same couple, separated by 19 years of life and – mostly bitter – experience.

A leftover from the previous set is the ever-present crucifix, this time looming over a much sparser, more orderly environment. The dry ice and already wilting flowers strewn across the maternity half of the stage foreshadow the story unfolding on the other side, as does the dialogue between the clearly unhappy and ill-matched young couple. Morgue-side is more of a church-like environment, the Coronet’s late-baroque interior providing the perfect setting for church benches, flickering candles and the odd votive niche.

The piece is by turns awkward, darkly funny, moving and painful to watch as Norén presents us with some of his recurring themes: the fast flow of time and the transience of all things; a Pinteresque failure of communication; birth and death as the unfathomable yet inexorable bookends to human existence; life itself as little more than a waiting room.

In Marita Lindholm Gochman’s flawless translation, this is an utterly compelling evening of theatre in which the characters are always totally believable, thanks not least to four deeply truthful performances from an exceptional cast.

By Kevin Halliwell

Photos courtesy of Print Room at The Coronet

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May 2, 2018

SELTA Spring Panel on Live Literary Events

SELTA Chair Ruth Urbom welcomed three guest speakers to our Spring Meeting 2018.

Friday the 13th of April turned out to be an auspicious date for SELTA members as we met for our regular spring meeting at the Embassy of Sweden in central London. After the conclusion of our official business we welcomed three guest speakers who told us about their approaches to programming live literary events.

First to speak was Anna Błasiak, who serves as the International Literature Coordinator for the European Literature Network. In that role Anna works with journalist and broadcaster Rosie Goldsmith to produce numerous events and publications focusing on literature in translation for readers in the UK. Of particular relevance for us in SELTA were the day-long seminar on Nordic Noir crime and thrillers held last year and the Nordic-themed issue of The Riveter journal, to which several of our members contributed book reviews and extracts. Based on experience from previous projects, Anna said that it helps to include a well-known UK-based person in a programme to attract larger audiences who may be unfamiliar with authors from abroad.

Next we heard from Ted Hodgkinson, Senior Programmer for Literature and Spoken Word at Southbank Centre in London. Ted gave us an overview of Nordic Matters, a year-long programme of cultural events staged throughout 2017 at Southbank Centre. After a series of ‘think-in’ brainstorming sessions with UK-based stakeholders from embassies and cultural organisations (including SELTA) and numerous visits by Southbank Centre staff to the Nordic countries – a tough job, no doubt! – programmers clustered the events around three themes: children and young people; sustainability; and gender equality. The full programme encompassed music, dance, visual arts, installations, fashion and design in addition to literature. Ted also told us about his experience co-editing (with the Icelandic author Sjón) The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat, the first pan-Nordic anthology published in English.

Our third panellist was Crystal Mahey-Morgan, who founded OWN IT! London to bring great storytelling to readers in many forms, including multimedia projects and even T-shirts in addition to traditional print books. The authors published by OWN IT! have international and diverse cultural backgrounds which are reflected in Crystal’s programming choices in putting together exciting, eclectic launch events for their titles. She recognises that people have a huge range of entertainment options available these days, so it’s important to design book-related events that can compete in a crowded field. The next title forthcoming from OWN IT! is by an author with Māori heritage, and Crystal told us she is considering including a live haka as part of that book launch.

On behalf of SELTA, I would like to thank all three panellists for sharing some insights into their efforts to bring stimulating literature to readers through innovative events.

By Ruth Urbom

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January 2, 2018

Words and the World

In Autumn 2017 SELTA member Fiona Graham attended the London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre. Here she reports back on Ted Hodgkinson’s conversation with Jonas Hassen Khemiri, winner of Sweden’s August Prize in 2015.

In a conversation with Ted Hodgkinson of the Southbank Centre and fellow-novelist Kamila Shamsie, billed as ‘What can words do?’, Jonas Hassen Khemiri spoke revealingly about the power of words to effect change, and the limitations of language.

A diarist since the age of six, Khemiri wanted to be a writer from early childhood. He described his memories as ‘dynamic’, or changeable, and observed that they were often intertwined with language. This seems natural for a born writer who grew up in a multilingual household, with parents born in different countries. Khemiri’s father, a teacher of Arabic, enjoyed comparing and contrasting words in different languages and teasing out their connotations. Comparing ‘dead end’, ‘cul-de-sac’ (literally ‘bottom of the bag’) and ‘återvändsgränd’, for instance, he mused that the Swedish expression had more positive implications than its English and French equivalents.

Speaking about his August Prize-winning recent novel, Allt jag inte minns (published in Rachel Willson-Broyles’ translation as Everything I Don’t Remember), Khemiri enlarged on the power of words to capture – and distort – memories. Samuel, the central figure in Allt jag inte minns, dies in a car crash, and those close to him attempt to bring him back by recounting their memories. Yet their very different accounts are unreliable, with gaps between reality and what is expressed in language. As a child, Khemiri missed people he was close to when they were absent, so he sought to recreate their presence by writing about them. In adulthood, he lost a dear friend while he was working on Allt jag inte minns. Again, he attempted to ‘bring her back’ by writing a text to be spoken at her funeral. Nonetheless, he was painfully conscious that words could not restore her to life, nor compensate for his feeling of ‘not having been there for her’.

What about the power of words to alert the public conscience to social ills? In 2013, when the Swedish police stepped up street ID checks on people of non-European appearance, the then Justice Minister, Beatrice Ask, drew a comparison between those who protested and former prison inmates who retain a fear of the police. Khemiri wrote an open letter, Dear Beatrice Ask, in which he called on the Justice Minister to imagine what it was like to be wrongfully suspected, again and again, just because of one’s skin or hair colour. Khemiri’s moving and powerful letter rapidly became the most shared text in Swedish history. Many Swedes with non-majority ethnic backgrounds identified strongly with the experiences he described; conversely, some of his friends expressed amazement at the huge number of testimonies his letter gave rise to. Khemiri drew a comparison with the MeToo hashtag campaign to raise awareness of sexual harassment and assault.

In the question and answer session, Khemiri said that writing non-fiction and fiction involved different parts of him. The letter to Beatrice Ask was a direct political response to a specific situation. Fiction is more open-ended, calling on the reader to ‘reconstruct’ the literary work in reading. For instance, Allt jag inte minns involves different voices, and it is left to the reader to work out who is speaking: Leide (the woman Samuel loved), Vandad (his male friend) or Samuel’s grandmother. Sometimes it is a matter of interpretation rather than deduction.

In response to Khemiri’s doubts about the effectiveness of his open letter, Kamila Shamsie stressed the importance of bearing witness; in twenty years’ time, Sweden would not be able to look back on 2013 and say there had been a consensus on racial profiling in policing.

Finally, Khemiri was asked about his reactions to translations of his work. He highlighted the importance for the translator of asking the right questions. Khemiri builds up a bank of ‘previously asked questions’ for his translators. He is acutely aware of the level of engagement different translators bring to the task; if they don’t ask the right questions, he said, ‘you feel they may not be the right fit for the book – and you cry!’ As for the end product, Khemiri reads the English and French translations, but feels better able to judge the quality of the English texts. He even prefers the English version to his original text sometimes. Khemiri’s remark that he is ‘blessed with an amazing translator, Rachel Willson-Broyles’ made the hearts of the translators in the audience beat faster. How many translators receive such an accolade from ‘their’ authors?

——————–

SELTA member Nicky Smalley reviewed Allt jag inte minns in SBR 2016:2. She set the open letter to Beatrice Ask in context in her review of Racismen i Sverige by Lawen Mohtadi and Devrim Mavi (SBR 2015:1).

By Fiona Graham

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November 21, 2017

Q&A with the founder of DENT – the Danish equivalent of SELTA

We were joined at our AGM on 3 November 2017 by two representatives from the nascent Association of Danish-English Literary Translators – or DELT – who came to observe SELTA at work. Ian Giles reports on our discussion with the founder and current Chair of DELT, Ellen Kythor.

SELTA: Hello there! Tell us how DELT got started… And what’s your role in this?

EK: Hello and thank you for inviting me and Lindy Falk van Rooyen to the SELTA AGM this year to introduce ourselves and learn from SELTA! I’m the recipient of the first UCL Impact PhD Studentship in Danish-English Translation, co-sponsored by UCL and Statens Kunstråds Litteraturudvalg (The Danish Arts Council’s Committee for Literature). Part of the ‘impact’ element of my PhD is that I’ve been given the remit to set up a new network for Danish into English literary translators, as one did not exist.

I started the PhD in UCL’s Scandinavian Studies department in Autumn 2013 and soon hosted a few initial meetings for translators in London and Copenhagen to run through the options for online networks and find out what they would find useful. The result of these discussions was that we identified the need for two separate online spaces: a (closed) network for translators to communicate and form a group identity, and a public website as the online presence of this network, to provide information to interested people about the network, its members, their work, and other useful resources. So in mid 2014 I launched our Google+ Community and the website danishtranslation.org.

Now after a few years of DELT meetings and events in London, Denmark, and the USA, we have started the process of formalising the network by establishing a committee and constitution. The voluntary ‘working committee’, of which I am Chair, has had two meetings this year and I’m very excited that the energy and expertise of enthusiastic translators is being channelled into ensuring the future of the network!

SELTA: In what ways is DELT different to SELTA?

EK: There are similarities and we have found so much inspiration from SELTA, but the first key difference is that DELT is open to all literary translators of Danish into English worldwide – that is, there is no separate network in North America (unlike SELTA’s counterpart STiNA), and the joining criteria at the moment are that established and emerging translators of Danish literary texts into English are welcome to join at any stage in their career. DELT is independent and unlike SELTA at present receives no regular funding or stipends, though we are eligible to apply to the Danish Arts Foundation’s Pulje for oversætternetværk for our meetings and events. In addition, at this stage we do not have a publication, though we eye Swedish Book Review with respect and envy and are making plans to develop an online publication once DELT is more firmly established!

SELTA: What is the hardest thing about setting up a brand new translators’ network?

EK: On reflection, it has been a very gradual process, partly owing to my other commitments (for instance, I am of course researching and writing my PhD on the dissemination of Danish literature in the UK!) and in trying to find where this network fits for its members around existing networks (such as the Society of Authors’ Translators’ Association or Danish equivalent Dansk Oversætterforbund).

SELTA: And the best thing?

EK: Meeting so many passionate people! All the translators I’ve met are infectiously keen on what they do. It is great to see the connections and friendships developing from creating such a network which simply didn’t exist before. On a personal level, the network has been a fantastic boon for my PhD research as I’m writing about the publishers, authors, funders, and translators who participate in bringing contemporary Danish literature to the UK, and translators have been so generous in giving me insight into this world.

SELTA: What opportunities do you see for future co-operation between DELT and other organisations like SELTA or the TA?

EK: Joint events and workshops certainly! For instance, it would be fantastic to set up a joint seminar day or similar in the not-too-distant future for literary translators of all the Scandinavian languages to network and learn together.

SELTA: Know any good jokes?

EK: My five-year-old’s current favourite: what’s orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot!

SELTA: Well that’s about it then… Thank you Ellen Kythor, DELT Chair.

http://danishtranslation.org/

This post was amended on 5 January 2018 to reflect the fact that shortly after this interview, DENT was renamed as DELT.

We also note that since this interview SELTA has voted to accept membership applications from Swedish to English translators worldwide.

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November 4, 2017

Northern Noir in London

In October 2017 several SELTA members attended In from the Cold: Northern Noir, a symposium on northern crime writing, translating crime fiction and criticism. Fiona Graham reports back.

At In from the Cold, attendees heard interviews with crime writers and gained an insight into translating crime fiction from Norwegian in a workshop and a translation slam. Fiona Graham gives an account of Henry Sutton’s workshop on Purpose and prose in the modern crime novel.

Committing crimes… to paper

What makes a good crime novel?

As a seasoned practitioner of the genre he calls ‘North Sea Noir’, Henry Sutton is well versed in the essential components of today’s crime fiction. The features he highlighted in his workshop, ‘Purpose and prose in the modern crime novel’, are of as much interest to translators hoping to surf the Nordic crime wave as they are to aspiring Highsmiths and Chandlers.

So what are those magical ingredients? Henry began by distinguishing between story and plot, the second of which introduces causality. Thus ‘The king died, then the queen died’ is a story, whereas ‘The king died, then the queen died of grief’ is a plot. And ‘The king died, then the queen died. No-one knew why, until it was discovered that she had been suffering from grief’ is a plot with suspense. A plot requires an element of risk or conflict that must be resolved. As John Le Carré put it, ‘The cat sat on the mat’ isn’t a plot – but ‘The cat sat on the dog’s mat’ is. The novel needs to start by establishing a situation with an element of tension, which may be slow-burning; a good example is Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley.

Character, motivation and setting are bound up with one another. To build a sense of impending menace, the writer needs to enter the mind of her characters and create convincing motives for the way they act – be it as perpetrator or detective. Here, a sense of authenticity is more important than absolute accuracy. As for the setting, Henry argues that it should be observed and depicted through the eyes of the characters. It is the subjective view that catches and grips the reader’s attention. As with travel writing, what interests the reader is not so much an accurate description of place and period, but the perceptions of a particular individual.

Since crime novels are plot-driven, a well-crafted structure is essential. Henry recommended that new writers plan the structure carefully before starting to write. More experienced writers, too, need to have a good idea of the direction the plot is going to take; between 58% and 62% should be established in the writer’s mind from the outset. (Quite how the writer might quantify this remained a mystery!) Then there is the question of how to narrate the story: will the narrative be linear, will the story take place at different time levels that intersect at some point, will it include flashbacks, what length of time will it cover – a day, a week, a year?

And here we come to pace and suspense, those vital ingredients of a gripping crime novel. Henry pointed out that advances in forensic science and technology have put modern crime fiction under ever-increasing time pressure. When Sjöwall and Wahlöö were writing their famous Martin Beck series, they didn’t have to contend with DNA analysis, computer databases or Internet, and solving a crime could credibly take far longer. Today the pace is relentless, and it tends to accelerate as the novel progresses, building up more and more tension. The crime novel should be tightly written, with no superfluous material. Every scene should advance the plot. As for suspense, the key technique is to pose questions – and postpone the answers for a long time.

Finally, Henry stressed that the crime novel must, above all, be entertaining. To do this, it must engage the reader, mainly by creating believable and intriguing characters and arousing strong emotions. What stays with the reader long after he has forgotten the details of the plot is the impression of the characters whose minds he has inhabited. The novel also offers intellectual pleasures; be it a whodunnit or a ‘whydunnit’, it demands the reader’s focused attention and deductive powers. Trying to outsmart the fictional detective is particularly enjoyable.

Though Henry’s workshop was designed primarily for crime writers, it also provided plenty of food for thought to all those of us who are tempted by the idea of translating ‘Scandi-crime’. Creating believable characters in an atmospheric setting, and maintaining pace, tension and suspense, after all, call for narrative skills of a very high order.

By Fiona Graham

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June 4, 2017

Author Elin Olofsson with Translators in London

In early May 2017, Elin Olofsson was one of four Swedish authors invited by SELTA to take part in two days of literary events in London. Here she shares her thoughts and reflections on that day’s discussion.

Participants had prepared their own translations of a brief excerpt from Elin’s 2016 novel Gånglåt (‘A Walking Melody’) and met to discuss their interpretations and word choices.

The English translation here is by SELTA member Marie Andersson. Scroll down for Elin’s original Swedish.

What exactly does the Swedish word sly (pronounced somewhat like ‘slee’, meaning ‘brushwood’ or ‘undergrowth’) refer to?

What English word best describes the vegetation that is so abundant in the wooded landscapes in the north of Sweden, where my books are set?

How tall is it? How dense?

What could be hidden in it?

A small cat, an escaped criminal, or perhaps even a two-metre-tall elk, about to run out into the road and pose mortal danger to an unsuspecting driver?

Indeed, what could be hidden in the sly? And what could it signify?

What does it represent, this brushwood or undergrowth that appears so frequently in my books?

Perhaps my sly is more about people’s inner state than the actual vegetation out there in the natural world? These were some of the thoughts that I brought with me back to my desk in Jämtland in Sweden after participating in the SELTA seminar in London in May.

I don’t know exactly how we came to talk about brushwood, the enthusiastic (passionate!) translators in my workshop group and I, but I think what triggered it was something related to people and what grows both inside and around a person (we did also discuss sexual slang terms and little cottages for rent amongst the mosquitoes!). You may think a discussion about brushwood could be easily dealt with, as it only concerns some little birches, or tiny goat willow or rowan saplings, or perhaps some newly sprouted fir trees in a row, but it turned out – as so often happens when it comes to words, languages and stories – that there was a whole world concealed in that sly.

A world that is about what we see and what we don’t. In each other, or in our surroundings.

Somehow for me, who grew up in rural Jämtland, it is only natural that brushwood represents deserted farming country. In a depopulated region the brushwood is left free to grow wild. It swallows up fields and consumes gravel roads and even whole houses, where no one wants to live anymore.

Thus, I believe that brushwood stands for a kind of sadness in my stories.

Sadness for what has become of everything, all this life that once was lived.

But brushwood is also vitality – as anyone who has ever tried to combat it will know. It never gives up. You can cut it down to the ground and try to dig up all its roots, and yet it keeps coming back. The moment you turn your back, it shoots up, tall and dense.

Nature has made brushwood unstoppable. That makes it impressive in itself.

And quite a lot like mankind.

And like a story that always finds a way forward.

I took these thoughts about brushwood – the translators’ interesting discussion about the value in finding exactly the right expression for Swedish sly, plus one single word’s importance with regard to context and implied meaning – back with me from London and the SELTA seminar, right into the final touches to my forthcoming novel Krokas. Here brushwood, trees and shrubs together actually conceal a person, but also eventually make it possible for the central characters to show human kindness.

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Vad är egentligen ”sly”?

Vilket engelskt ord passar bäst för att beskriva den vegetation som det finns så gott om i det skogslandskap i norra Sverige, där mina böcker utspelar sig?

Hur hög är slyn? Hur tät?

Vad kan denna sly dölja?

En liten katt, en brottsling på rymmen eller kanske en till och med en två meter hög älg, som strax ska störta ut på vägen och bli till en livsfara för en intet ont anande bilist?

Ja, vad kan slyn dölja? Och vad kan den visa på?

Vad står den för, denna sly som så ofta förekommer i mina böcker?

Handlar min sly kanske mer om människornas inre tillstånd än om den faktiska växtligheten där ute i naturen? Ja, det var några av de funderingar jag tog med mig hem till Sverige, Jämtland och mitt skrivbord efter att ha deltagit på SELTA:s seminarium i London i maj.

Jag vet inte varför vi kom att diskutera just sly, de engagerade (passionerade!) översättarna i min workshop-grupp och jag, men jag tror att det var det där med människan och vad som växer både inuti och runt henne som satte igång oss (vi diskuterade ju könsord också … Och små stugor att hyra, mitt bland myggen!). Man kan ju tycka att ett samtal om sly vore enkelt överstökat när det bara rör sig om några enstaka tunna björkar eller några små skott av sälg eller rönn eller kanske alldeles nyfödda små granar på rad, men det visade sig – som så ofta när man har med ord, språk och berättelser att göra – att en hel värld dolde sig i den där slyn.

En värld som har med det vi ser och inte ser att göra. Hos varandra eller i omgivningen.

För mig, som är uppvuxen på den jämtländska landsbygden, är det på något sätt självklart att sly står för en övergiven jordbruksbygd. I en öde trakt låter man slyn härja fritt. Slyn slukar åkrar och tuggar i sig både grusvägar och hela hus, där ingen vill bo längre.

Därför står sly för en sorts sorg, tror jag, i mina berättelser.

Sorg över vad det blev av allting, allt detta liv som en gång levdes.

Men sly är livskraft också – det vet alla som försökt hålla tillbaka sly. Den ger aldrig upp. Du kan såga av den längs med marken och försöka gräva upp rötterna, men den kommer alltid tillbaka. Så fort du tittar åt ett annat håll växer den sig tät och hög.

Den är av naturen obetvinglig. Slyn är imponerande på så sätt.

Och påminner inte så lite om människan.

Och om berättelsen, som alltid letar sig fram.

Jag tog med mig tankarna om sly – översättarnas intressanta diskussion om värdet av att finna exakt rätt ord för sly samt vad ett enskilt litet ord bär med sig av kontext och underförstådd innebörd – hem från London och SELTA-seminariet, rakt in i slutförandet av min kommande roman Krokas. Där döljer sly, träd och buskar tillsammans bokstavligen en människa, men blir också till det som slutligen gör det möjligt för huvudpersonerna att visa medmänsklighet.

 

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Nature in Writing

In early May 2017, SELTA welcomed four Swedish authors to London for two busy days of literary events, Chair Ruth Urbom looks back on the event.

Sooner or later every translator of Swedish literature has to grapple with descriptions of the natural world. Even in books that are not primarily about nature, the Swedish landscape, weather, flora and fauna often appear in the course of the narrative. Just how fluffy or slushy is that snow, and how solid is the ice? What sorts of trees are present in the forest? What kinds of fish are biting in the lake? And how can we translators convey all that to English-speaking readers?

With that theme in mind, SELTA invited four Swedish authors – Göran Bergengren, Jonas Gren, Elin Olofsson and Therése Söderlind – to come to the UK for a two-day programme of translation workshops and other events. All four of these authors are well established in their native Sweden but still unpublished in English. While they work in a variety of genres spanning fiction, poetry, essays and children’s books, they all address the natural world in their writing to a greater or lesser extent.

We were lucky enough to secure a slot in the Free Word Centre’s Wanderlust programme of international literary events. Their ‘speed book clubbing’ format was ideal for giving audience members an opportunity to hear all four authors speak about their work up close. Everyone was seated at four round tables. The authors, each accompanied by a SELTA member who had translated a brief extract from one of their works, introduced themselves and their writing and responded to questions and comments from the group. After around 20 minutes a bell rang out, signalling it was time for the authors and translators to move to the next table and meet a new group of readers. The dynamic format kept interest levels high, and eventually all the groups had a chance to engage with each of the visiting authors. If you missed this exciting event – tickets sold out well in advance! – you can still get a sneak peek at the pieces that were specially translated for the evening on the Free Word Centre website.

The next morning, SELTA members and the authors descended on the Swedish Embassy in London for an intensive day of discussions and talks about writing and translation. First we heard presentations by Elin Olofsson and Therése Söderlind about their novels. Sweden’s rural north figures prominently in the works of both writers. Elin spoke powerfully about the inspiration she derives from the experiences of her own mother and other strong women in her family tree – her foremothers. Therése outlined the in-depth research she did to uncover the true events that led to over 70 people being put to death for witchcraft in the late 17th century. This story forms the core of her second novel, a review of which is available online.

We then split into two groups to analyse and discuss a bundle of translations that participants had prepared of a brief extract from Elin and Therése’s most recent novels. Looking at multiple English versions of a single source text highlights the differences between individual translators’ interpretations and word choices. It also gives us translators a chance to really geek out about fine shades of meaning and to expand our range of translation strategies, learning from the solutions chosen by our colleagues. Elin Olofsson has shared her own reflections on her group’s workshop discussion in a guest post.

The afternoon session began with presentations by Göran Bergengren and Jonas Gren about their work. Göran’s most recent books contain personal, lyrical essays about birds, butterflies and other elements of the natural world, but he has also written many children’s books. He read some brief extracts and commented movingly about the environmental changes he has observed over the years in his role as a naturalist. Jonas treated us to readings of some of his poems, which added a new dimension to our enjoyment of them. In addition to his creative output as a poet, Jonas is on the editorial team at Effekt, a Swedish magazine that focuses on climate and environmental issues. He does more than just talk the talk: having taken the decision to stop flying, Jonas travelled all the way from Stockholm to London by train for this seminar. Göran and Jonas’ presentations were followed by small-group workshop sessions in which we compared participants’ brief translated extracts that had been prepared in advance.

Then it was time to listen to a panel of UK editors who shared their experiences of publishing nature-related books in translation and what they look for in a book when commissioning. Saskia Vogel of SELTA moderated the panel discussion with Laura Barber of Portobello Books, Katharina Bielenberg of MacLehose Press and Luke Neima of Granta Online.

The day concluded with a reception at the Swedish embassy for specially invited publishers and others involved in the UK’s literary scene to chat with the authors and translators over a glass of wine.

The Spring 2018 issue of Swedish Book Review, a literary journal with close ties to SELTA, will feature translated excerpts from these four authors’ works. Let’s hope some enterprising UK publishers will soon snap up their intriguing books and make them available in full to English-speaking readers!

If you’d like to learn more about these four fascinating authors’ works – plus a few more titles from Swedish and Finland-Swedish authors – you can download this PDF brochure.

SELTA is grateful to the Swedish Arts Council and the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation for the grants that made it possible to bring the authors over to the UK, to the Embassy of Sweden in London for the use of the seminar venue and staff assistance, and to the Free Word Centre for hosting the public event. My thanks go to Saskia Vogel and Nichola Smalley for their assistance in planning these events and to all the participating authors and translators for contributing to such a thought-provoking and rewarding experience.

By Ruth Urbom

Photo credit: Ian Giles

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February 4, 2017

A Riveting Reviews Workshop

SELTA members Sarah Death, Fiona Graham and Kate Lambert attended the European Literature Network’s workshop on review writing in February 2017.

On 1 February SELTA members attended a workshop on writing book reviews, especially reviews of fiction in translation, run by Rosie Goldsmith of the European Literature Network. The event brought in an impressive range of reviewers, critics and editors to share their reviewing experience and opinions with an audience of aspiring reviewers, translators included. Here Sarah Death, Fiona Graham and Kate Lambert give their thoughts on three and a half hours listening to, sometimes contradictory, words of wisdom from the experts.

Sarah Death:

This non-stop three-and-a-half-hour sequence of engaging speakers left us with heads in a whirl and checklists coming out of our ears, but it was packed with good practical advice. One of my overriding impressions was of the goodwill shown to the European Literature Network and its energetic founder Rosie Goldsmith by all these translator-friendly movers and shakers in the literary media, who gave their services without charge, making this a free event for participants. Speakers included seasoned reviewers, writers and publishers, some wearing multiple hats, and they were generous with their top tips.

Read the whole book (not everyone does), and allow it to settle in your mind before starting to write. A strong personal response and going with your gut instinct is a good thing, but avoid being over-emotional, or your review will say more about you than about the book. By all means be witty and funny, but also take your job seriously and do your homework. Try to make your review a narrative, with a beginning, middle and an end. Arifa Akbar said the best reviews were rather like telling someone in the pub what happened in a book, in two sentences.

The reviewer should attempt to establish her authority, but she can achieve this in far better ways than the clever comparisons with other authors in which some reviewers indulge. (In this, a review of course differs from a reader’s report for a publisher.)  In terms of reviewing translations, the perennial question arose of whether someone who does not speak the source language can judge the translation. Even if they do not, as is usually the case, it is possible and desirable to make informed comment. Boyd Tonkin took the view that while translators of, say, genre fiction might be happy to be self-effacing, the majority of translators hoped to feature in the review and not just be skimmed over with a ‘deftly translated by X’. He felt that with experience, the reviewer develops an instinct for the strategy a translator has developed and employed.

He also answered the question I raised in an earlier blog on the SELTA site, namely whether a publication like SBR could be expected to avoid spoilers altogether. He agreed that we can, and should, allow ourselves these, because we are largely reviewing as-yet-untranslated books, whose endings the average Anglophone publisher cannot know unless we tell them.

The discussion kept coming back to the vexed question of the negative review, especially in a small circle where it will be easy to ruffle feathers. The majority view was that we cannot always run away from writing negative reviews, but there is no excuse for hatchet jobs. One can write a rounded review which acknowledges a book’s good points while also pointing out what one perceives as its flaws. Alexandra Masters from the online magazine BookSmoke reminded us of a wonderful quotation from Kurt Vonnegut:

‘As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.’

A reputation for honest reviews – such as that we have sought to build up in SBR – helps to give a publication and its reviewers credibility. It was heartening if surprising to hear that statistics apparently show a shockingly bad review has just the same effect on book sales as an effusively good one: the public is drawn to both equally. The real trick is to become adept at writing all those in between, or what Claire Armitstead referred to as ‘the three-star area of reviewing’.

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Fiona Graham:

‘Critics and reviewers are like vultures – not popular, but essential to the ecology,’ according to Claire Armitstead, head of book reviews at the Guardian. If that unflattering description applies to book reviewers in general, what can one say of translators who review the work of their peers, literature in translation? To extend the zoological metaphors, are they not doomed either to play the piranha in the proverbial duckpond if critical, or, conversely, to engage in the mutual grooming typical of gibbons if they praise the work of a colleague?

The European Literature Network’s February workshop on reviewing translated literature helped allay some of these fears. A recurrent theme in the top tips shared by an impressive array of professional reviewers and writers was the reviewer as ‘book appreciator’, to quote Alexandra Masters, founding editor of BookSmoke. ‘Reader-to-reader generosity’, she said, was the key to good reviewing. While several speakers acknowledged the facile entertainment value of slating a book, all stressed the superior skill that writing a measured critical appreciation involves.

Is there a big difference between reviewing a work in the original language and one in translation? Several speakers said this depended largely on the genre. Boyd Tonkin, Senior Writer at the Independent, suggested that reviewers of crime fiction in translation would probably pay less attention to the translation aspect. This view was echoed by Max Easterman, a regular reviewer of crime writing at the European Literature Network’s Riveting Reviews. On the other hand, Max stressed the importance of getting the language exactly right in this often underestimated genre. The writer – like the translator and the reviewer – needs to understand the milieu, including authentic terminology and slang, to ‘make the story come alive’.

When reviewing more traditionally literary fiction, the reviewer may decide to pay greater attention to the translator’s role. Sadly, few are able to compare the translation with the original – and even if they were, the business model for reviewing allows them neither the time nor the money to do so. However, skilled reviewers develop an intuitive ability to ask pertinent questions about the quality of a translation, and may call on friends with the relevant linguistic knowledge to investigate their hunches.

Translators who review books from their own areas of linguistic expertise are, of course, equipped to make informed judgments. However, Boyd Tonkin counselled against devoting too much of the review to the translation itself. Most Anglophone readers, after all, are interested in a book as an English text, not in the process of transformation. Samantha Schnee of Words Without Borders went even further in warning reviewers not to ‘show off’ their knowledge of the original and to avoid nitpicking.

So one message that came across clearly was that a translator reviewing a translated work of literature engages with it primarily as an English text. And in producing a critical appreciation, the translator should be bold and original. A good reviewer will have read and collected plenty of reviews and analysed what makes for success. However, it is probably advisable not to read a lot of reviews of the particular book you are going to write about, according to Arifa Akbar of Wasafiri. Reviewers need to develop their own individual voice and should not be afraid to depart from the consensus or to be ‘unfashionable’. As regards the form the review takes, writing is no longer the only option. The European Literature Network has recently been publishing video reviews – a new and exciting way to engage with a potential readership.

‘The anguish of writing reviews never lessens,’ according to Arifa Akbar. Moreover, reviewing can be very labour-intensive. (Rosie Goldsmith, ELN founder, spent a week on her first review, a 600-word write-up of Hotel du Lac). But for those of us who are keen to build cultural bridges between the Anglosphere and the rest of the world, this is another way to do so which may enrich our work as translators.

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Kate Lambert:

It says something for the impressive line-up of speakers taking it in turns at the microphone that the audience sat still for three and a half hours. The speakers were informative and entertaining, just as they told us reviews should be. Claire Armistead, books editor of The Guardian, quoted Stanley Fish in describing the informative aspect, in that reviewers should assume that their readers are ‘intelligent, interested and ignorant’. Meike Ziervogel of Peirene Press, giving a publisher’s view of reviews, said that reviewers need to be sincere readers, even if the publisher or the author would disagree with their view, and advised that reviews need a storyline of their own. Lucy Lethbridge recommended selecting three separate quotes to launch three paragraphs, and picking out quotes while reading rather than afterwards. ‘Read the book!’ was another piece of advice that should go without saying, though apparently not always followed, but ‘let the book settle before writing a review’ was a useful warning to the last-minute adrenaline deadline merchants amongst us.

I was interested to see how much the advice of professional reviewers, with a slant towards books in translation, would apply to reviews written of books in the original language, often with a view to encouraging their translation but there was plenty of practical advice for us all. Swedish Book Review tends not to go in for what Boyd Tonkin referred to as ‘male oedipal gladiatorial butchery’ in the style of early Martin Amis, however, entertaining though this might be. One question asked was whether reviewers change their voice for different publications. Boyd’s response was that reviewers might use different vocabulary but that it was essential not to disguise yourself, to honestly reflect what you think and not to use a voice that is not yours.

A big thank you goes to Rosie Goldsmith and the European Literature Network for putting on the event, and to all the speakers for sharing their tips and especially for being amusing about their own initial forays into the careers in which they are now prominent, which ranged from dogged and determined to cheerfully clueless. There is hope for us all.

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