I was very interested to read the Karin Boye poem inspired by a visit to Linköping Cathedral in SBR 2014:2. I didn’t know the poem before. My introduction to Sweden, the Swedes and the Swedish language came from a two-year stint (1970-72) teaching English in Linköping for Folkuniversitetet (British Centre). I passed the cathedral most days, and remember attending a performance of Heinrich Schütz’s Christmas Oratorio there. At one time the wife of the cathedral dean was my student and our class met at least once in the pleasant surroundings of the deanery.

A few words about the life of an EFL teacher in Sweden in the far-off days of Olof Palme and Gunnar Sträng (the long-serving finance minister) might be of interest to SELTA members who have followed a more academic route into literary translation. Adult education organisations proliferated in Sweden, some of them affiliated to a particular political party. The Folk University was an exception in that regard, and prided itself on employing only teacher-trained native speakers as teachers of English. Each year between seventy and eighty teachers were recruited from all over the UK on one-year contracts which could be renewed for a further year (a longer stay incurred problems with the tax authorities!).

Where a rival teaching organisation was particularly well entrenched, the FU’s policy was to work with them rather than try to compete. So in my first year in Linköping, just after graduating from Moray House teacher-training college in Edinburgh, I was attached to TBV (Tjänstemännens Bildningsverksamhet), which catered mainly for white-collar workers and had links to Folkpartiet, the Liberal Party, if I remember correctly. But towards the end of my first year I was told to transfer to the newly-opened branch of Kursverksamheten vid Stockholms Universitet (KV). Stockholm University had had a presence in Linköping since 1967 (becoming Linköping University in 1975), and KV was its continuing education branch.

But my favours were spread more widely than that, with weekly visits to the neighbouring towns of Finspång (adult evening classes) and Mjölby (admirable gymnasium or high-school pupils staying on for me after the end of the school day). My occasional chauffeur to Finspång (I was and am a non-driver) was an Austrian teacher of German and French who freelanced as a part-time gamekeeper for local aristocrat Grev Douglas (a Swedish count of Scottish descent) and many a trip to Finspång saw us diverting into the local forest so that Norman could check his mink-traps. I took the Malmö train the few miles down to Mjölby and kept up to date with the news from Skåne by browsing discarded copies of Sydsvenska Dagbladet.

There was also a weekly session in Linköping itself with Allmänna Ingenjörsbyrån (consultant engineers), who would liven up the last lesson of term with bunting and a generous “carry-out” of starköl, and their diametric opposite, Husmodersföreningen, a sort of cross between the WI (WRI for Scottish readers) and the Townswomen’s Guild. And I mustn’t forget the delightful young ladies of Elsa Brändströms flickskola, the local girls’ school (do they still exist in Sweden?).

Trips out to Lunnevads folkhögskola at Sjögestad in the wilds of Östergötland were no fun in the depths of winter when I had to trudge through the snow for about half an hour after getting off the bus from Linköping. Then I would do mad things like singing folksongs to the young adult students, this particular establishment having a specialism in music.

By the time I returned to the UK in 1972 I was fairly fluent in Swedish, and decided to do the Newcastle University Certificate of Proficiency in Swedish. But when Professor Duncan Mennie, a pioneer of Scandinavian Studies in Britain, asked me what I was going to do with it, I was at a loss. Later, I discovered that it was possible to do a University of London external BA in just about any language under the sun, including the Nordic ones, as long as you had some previous knowledge and were able to prepare yourself for the exams with the help of reading lists, so that was my next goal, finally achieved in 1980.

So what to do with my brand-new and frankly useless degree in Scandinavian Studies? Just as I was toying with the idea of embarking on a Ph.D. on the historical novel in Sweden, I read an article in the Guardian by the literary editor, Richard Gott, in which he described a visit to Stockholm where he had met up with a group of Swedish writers who were complaining about the difficulty of getting translated into and published in English. One name I recognised was Per Wästberg, a writer whose books I had enjoyed once I had enough Swedish to understand them. I contacted him through the newspaper with an offer to do some translations for him, he responded with alacrity, and I was off and away. That initial contact led to further openings, and over the years I have translated several major biographies of figures such as Axel Munthe, Raoul Wallenberg and V.V. Mayakovsky for the likes of IB Tauris and Chicago University Press, as well as many articles for various arts journals such as ARTES INTERNATIONAL and OO-tal.

More recent translations include a biography of the Nobel family and their contribution to the industrialisation of Russia, in which Bloomsbury have expressed an interest, and a biography of J.G. Andersson, a Swedish explorer and geologist who was recruited by the new Republican government in China in 1914 to prospect for mines. In the event, Andersson developed an interest in archaeology and anthropology and ended up helping the Chinese to rewrite their prehistory. This translation still awaits a publisher.

I would like to have translated more fiction, but I have built up a relationship with Magnus Florin, chief “dramaturge” at Dramaten in Stockholm, former head of drama for Swedish Radio and author of a series of rather quirky little novels, some of which I have translated for Vagabond Voices, an independent publisher in Glasgow.

I count myself very lucky, especially as I had a day-job as well, right up to early retirement in 2001, and have never had to rely on translation for my living. To end on a downbeat note, I am not sure how anyone manages to do that, so many are the hazards and pitfalls of the translation trade.

Photos: Top, Harry Watson on his holidays (with socks). (1) View of Linköping from Harry Watson’s flat in Ågatan in the 1970s; (2) Harry in his teaching days in Sweden (before the smoking ban); (3) Cover of Harry’s translation of Magnus Florin’s The Garden; (4) Harry today. All photos provided by Harry Watson.

When did you join SELTA?

I have no idea when I joined SELTA, but I was not a founder member. Because I live in Sweden but grew up in the US, and because STiNA did not exist at the time, I turned to SELTA at some point (maybe in around 1985?) and asked if I could possibly join so that I could have more regular contact with other native English-speaking translators. I have lived in Sweden since 1972 and been translating since around 1979. Swedish Book Review, originally Swedish Books, was founded in Göteborg, where I live, and I was an early contributor, but not a founder member there, either.

Tell us about your career – where did you learn Swedish, how did you become a translator? What would you say you specialise in?

My American husband and I moved to Sweden in 1972 not knowing that we would be here for more than a summer. Languages have always been what I was good at, but I knew no Swedish when we first came. I taught English and worked with young people for several years before being accepted to an interpreting and translation course at Gothenburg University in autumn 1977.

So I have been translating since manual typewriters, carbon paper and Tippex were the way of working (and if you made more than a small mistake you had to retype the whole page). Ditto dictionaries, phoning institutions for help with terms, and writing letters with envelopes and stamps. I have followed the entire path from there to electric typewriters, early computers with magnetic cards, the advent of the World Wide Web, the internet, email zoom and so forth.

Did your career trajectory change? Is it different now compared with what you expected at the start?

My main profession from 1980 until 2013 when I retired was conference and court translation and interpreting, and most of my focus in terms of contributing time and energy to organisations went in that direction. But literary translation has always been where my heart is. I began translating literature in the mid-1980s, but only in my “spare time”. Sadly, literary translation has thus always been a sideline for me (though I have almost always been working on a novel translation), and only in the last decade have I been a seriously active contributor to SELTA and SBR.

What are some of your most interesting translation projects?

The three authors I have translated several books by, Kerstin Ekman, Selma Lagerlöf and Annika Thor are close to my heart, but I have enjoyed almost every project upon which I have embarked. This summer has included a new series of poems by Ingela Strandberg and an excerpt from Olivia Bergdahl’s memoir Vård och omsorg. I quite simply love working with words, puzzling over formulations, and not least answering questions about English for my colleagues who are translating into Swedish.

How is the world of translation today different to when you started out?

What I miss most about the “old” world of translation is being able to propose books for translation to editors with whom I have worked previously and being listened to. Today most editors seem to move on so fast there is hardly time to propose something new, and whether or not that book has sold at the book fair in Frankfurt seems the decisive factors. What I like most, beyond the translation process itself, is discussions with knowledgeable editors whose input is invaluable.

How has being a SELTA member helped in your career (if it has!)?

I was just thinking over breakfast how important it has been to me, over the years, to feel part of a “translators’ community”, i.e. SELTA and SBR in the UK and some other fora in Sweden. And I’ve very much enjoyed doing virtual readings for World Kit Lit month and Translators Aloud. It’s something I’ve really appreciated.

When did you join SELTA?

I have been a member of SELTA since 1982.

If you are a founder member, how did the decision to form SELTA come about? What other SELTA names do you remember from that era?
Tom Geddes was the driving force then and without him SELTA would never have come into being or flourished later on. Although he is a very unassuming person he was deeply involved in every aspect of the association. He avoided taking the Chair but he was the actual ‘leader’ for a long time. It could occasionally mean the exclusion of other members but mainly because no one else offered their services – for several years. We had a committee but most of the members were rather passive.

During my fifteen years as Chair I made sure that the committee consisted of people who were allotted a special task. That made it easier to resign and hand over to the next person, in my case, the very competent Ruth Urbom.

Apart from Tom Geddes other colourful early members were Joan Tate, Patricia Crampton, Ann Henning and Laurie Thompson. Ann Henning and David McDuff also joined us during the first period, but I am not sure exactly when.

As Literary Translators we felt there was a lack of communication between us and the literary establishment. We were all working in isolation. The Cultural Attache became an early ally of SELTA and helped us with meeting room, subsidies and the handling of the Bernard Shaw Prize.

Joan Tate insisted that the Association should be about Literary Translators rather than Technical or Academic Translators. She thought there was a great divide between those who were employed by universities and people like her who struggled on a freelance basis. There were exceptions to that. Laurie Thompson, for instance, was a lecturer at Lampeter University and as Editor of Swedish Book Review he could use the facilities there to publish our magazine. There was no Internet in the early eighties so everything took so much longer than today.

Tell us about your career – where did you learn Swedish, how did you become a translator? What are some of your most interesting translation projects?
From an early age I had one foot in each country and my degree in English (specialising in Literature before 1800) and Litteraturvetenskap at Gothenburg University, which included World Literature, turned out a very good choice for my future career. I was broadly educated in Sweden but moved to this country before I was twenty, finishing my degree here.

I started out as a novelist, published one adult novel and four youth fiction novels before starting to translate. Since I was involved in the theatre and worked on fifteen productions with my late husband who was a theatre director it was natural for me to carry on translating and adapting drama.

Altogether I have translated fifteen Strindberg plays who have all been published and twelve of them have been performed either in England or the US. In the nineties I was commissioned to translate a number of Swedish classics for the BBC Drama Department: Hjalmar Söderberg’s Gertrud, Hjalmar Bergman’s Markurell i Wadköping, Pär Lagerkvist’s Barabbas and Ingmar Bergmans En Själslig Angelägenhet.

In Sweden I worked on English classics in my Swedish translations for various theatres: The Shoemaker’s Holiday by Thomas Dekker, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Stephen Lowe and Mad Forest by Carol Churchill.

In the eighties I also translated two Swedish novels: The Mysterious Barricades by Bengt Söderberg and My Life as a Dog by Reidar Jönsson. Bengt and I corresponded regularly during my work on his translation and when I got to a passage where Bengt had translated something from Racine I asked him in exasperation, what do you want me to do with this? He had been using his own translation of Racine but what should I do? I could not very well use an existing English translation. No, since I used my own translation, said Bengt, I suggest you simply cut it in your English translation. That led to one critic accusing me of neglect or, worse still, ignorance. But every move was endorsed by Bengt so I felt rather disappointed.

After my decade of drama translations for the BBC, I turned to biography and published two books about Strindberg and his women, a biography on Queen Filippa of Sweden-Denmark and a few more personal books, including one about Saint Birgitta and her daughter Katarina.

How has being a SELTA member helped in your career (if it has!)
I can’t honestly say that being a member of SELTA has helped me in my career. It is quite a lonely road but it has been fun meeting other wordmongers at regular intervals.

Life as a Literary Translator

After an early debut as a playwright in my native Sweden in 1972, I relocated to London but found it hard to make ends meet working in London theatre. As assistant to legendary director Charles Marowitz, I received a weekly wage of 6 guineas. Permanent employment as a linguist at the London World Trade Centre gave a much improved, steady income, but left me hungry for more creative work. With my sights on literary translation, I contacted Swedish publishers and was soon given a sample to translate: an excerpt from an early crime novel written by an unknown author called Ruth Rendell. My sample met with approval and was followed by years of intense work translating English novels into Swedish.

In 1979, I was approached by Norstedts. Ingrid Bergman was writing her autobiography and needed someone based in London to help with research and translation, both English and Swedish, acting as a bridge between herself and ghost writer Alan Burgess. First of all, she wanted me to do a sample for her to examine. She rang up very early one morning to tell me I was unable to spell. I was shocked, but drew breath when she told me that my one mistake had been to spell Rossellini with only one “l”. Otherwise, she was delighted with my work and wished to meet me. This was the beginning of many months of delightful collaboration, including much editing, as her first husband, Aron Petter Lindström, kept objecting to her descriptions of him and threatened to sue us all unless the passages were totally rewritten. This led to some controversy over my fee, as Norstedts were only prepared to pay as per my contract for text delivered, notwithstanding months of extra work I had been made to put in. It took an intervention by Ingrid before I was paid a reasonable fee for the additional work. It taught me never to take on unscheduled work without first agreeing a fee for it.

Around this time, I started to translate more books from Swedish into English. I became a member of the Institute of Linguists and was elected Chair of the Translators’ Association, attending conferences in Kiev, Vienna, Amsterdam, Stockholm and London. Through the TA I also got to know well-established colleagues, such as Patricia Crampton, Mary Sandbach, Joan Tate and Eivor Martinus. We all faced the same problem of trying to persuade British publishers to take on Swedish books. More often than not we were given the standard answer that “Swedish books don’t sell”. Agreeing that something had to be done to convince the trade that there were indeed Swedish books worthy of publication, we started talking about taking joint action. Once we got leading academics like Karin Petherick of UCL, Laurie Thompson of St. David’s College Lampeter and Tom Geddes of the British Library on board, we were in a position to form SELTA: the Swedish-English Literary Translators’ Association. Much help and support was given by the Swedish Embassy in London. Eivor Martinus and myself were even enabled to take a degree in English literature at Lund University, remotely via the London Embassy.

In spite of valiant effort by the members of SELTA, working on a voluntary basis writing reviews and doing sample translations for Swedish Books, published regularly and distributed to publishers, there were still very few books being accepted for translation, so I went on working into Swedish as well. In addition to Ruth Rendell, I worked with some leading English authors, including Kazuo Ishiguro, whose crystal-clear language was a pure pleasure to work with.

In the 1980s, I got married and moved country once more, this time to Ireland, where I started a successful career writing my own stuff. I had less time to translate but held on to Ishiguro. In 1989, I was contracted to translate The Remains of the Day, but had to give it up when I ended up in hospital for an extended period having my first and only child. This marked the end of my career as an English-Swedish translator.

In the 1990s, I became involved once more with work for the stage and over the years have had a number of my own plays performed, in Ireland and England, including the West End. In 1997, I was appointed Artistic Director of the Fourth International Congress for Women Playwrights, held in Galway. This led to work translating Scandinavian plays by authors such as Jon Fosse, Henning Mankell and Sara Stridsberg into English. With much practical experience of stagecraft, I realised I was particularly well suited to this work and so decided to specialise in dramatic translation. This work has evolved into original English versions. Working with composers on one libretto for opera and text/lyrics for musicals has presented huge challenges, which I find immensely rewarding.

Looking at the literary market, it has gone through a complete transformation since SELTA was formed, adding one Swedish mega-bestseller to another. Just how much credit goes to the indefatigable efforts by SELTA members over the decades is of course impossible to assess, but for a founding member it is a joy to note that we have come such a long way in these 40 years. Today no self-respecting British publisher would dream of repeating the line we heard ad nauseam: that “Swedish books don’t sell.” Even so, it is fortunate that we have publishers like Norvik and Quercus prepared to take risks and publish books not only based on commercial potential but also on quality.

The work of SELTA continues, now better organised and more effective than ever, and I wish the membership much well-deserved success in ensuring that many future Swedish books will find their way on to the international market, not to forget wonderful classics too good to be forgotten.

Dear SELTA members,

What a weird year of ups and downs! It wasn’t all bad – indeed some parts were very good – but I doubt I’m the only person who will be glad to see the back of 2021 as the Christmas holidays loom large. Anyway, I’d like to begin by thanking you for another year of gott samarbete in SELTA.

Our membership figures remain strong – we end the year with a membership tally of 85, representing an increase of 11 against last year. This partly reflects our decision to admit our North American colleagues, but represents continuing growth in Europe too. It’s gratifying that even in these changing times, members value what SELTA has to offer.

Back in January, the possibility of meeting in person seemed a distant prospect as restrictions rumbled on for many of us. Nevertheless, we were able to meet via Zoom for a couple of informal fikastunds. I was also pleased that we were able to continue our track record of public-facing online events in the first half of the year. In March, we held an event focusing on the cross-currents between literary translation and other activities, drawing speakers from among our own ranks (watch here). In April, we were overjoyed when Nichola Smalley was included on the longlist for the International Booker Prize for her translation of Andrzej Tichý’s ‘Wretchedness’, and we held a virtual event with both Nicky and Andrzej to mark this achievement (generously funded by the Swedish Embassy in London). You can watch it here. Our digital spring meeting held in May attracted 25 members – surely a record for a SELTA meeting?

Despite misgivings, there was work going on in the background to prepare for an in-person gathering. After securing an eye watering amount of funding from the Swedish Literature Exchange to allow four authors from Sweden to travel over (all on refundable tickets!), we pressed on hatching plans for a day-long workshop in London in October. It was a real delight to welcome authors Susanna Alakoski, Eija Hetekivi Olsson, Mats Jonsson and Anneli Jordahl to discuss their work with members of SELTA and other guests (including two MA students from UCL). You can read the accounts of the day here. After a fruitful day, our authors travelled on to Bristol where they appeared in a public panel as part of the Working-Class Writers Festival, which you can listen to the recording of here. All this would have been impossible without the generosity of our funders, our embassy hosts, and the untiring hard work of my predecessor Ruth Urbom.

SELTA continues to maintain ongoing dialogue with our good friends at the Swedish Literature Exchange. Notwithstanding their considerable financial support for our working class literature workshop and the festival in Bristol, funding has also been made available to support a Swedish mentorship run through ALTA (with SELTA member Kira Josefsson serving as mentor), and a grant awarded earlier this month will also allow Henry Jeppesen to undertake a mentorship with Sarah Death. The Swedish Literature Exchange have organised several översättarsalonger over the year which have been well-attended, and I gather these are to continue.

Our colleagues at the Swedish Embassy in London also take an active interest in our work. Pia Lundberg (Cultural Counsellor) was delighted to welcome so many of us to the embassy in October for our workshop and she remains excited about the work that we do. We were also thrilled to finally meet Sofia Lundström, the all-round fixer extraordinaire of the embassy cultural section. Torbjörn Sohlström has returned to Sweden from his posting (where he has bought a bookshop!) and his new replacement, Mikaela Kumlin Granit, has settled into post. She too was eager to meet both authors and translators at October’s workshop, and we are confident of the embassy’s continuing support for our activities.

Indeed, the embassy (under the auspices of the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation which they administer) has truly shown its support for literature in translation. I am overjoyed that the Society of Authors is moving the Bernard Shaw Prize from triennial to biennial – this has been made possible by the generosity of the ASLF trustees. This means that once the 2021 prize is awarded on 10 February, we will only have to wait two years for the next award. This is richly deserved – around 50 Swedish books are published in English translation annually now, as opposed to some 10–15 annually when the prize was established.

In November, Swedish-translation-Christmas came early when the shortlist for the 2021 Bernard Shaw Prize was announced. On it were: Neil Smith for ‘Anxious People’, Deborah Bragan-Turner for ‘To Cook a Bear’, Sarah Death (twice) for Hagar Olsson’s ‘Chitambo’ and Tove Jansson’s ‘Letters from Tove’, and Nicky Smalley for ‘Wretchedness’.

In fact, 2021 feels like an outstanding year for SELTA members on the prize front. As mentioned, Nichola Smalley was longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize for her translation of Andrzej Tichý’s ‘Wretchedness’, which was also the winner of the 2021 Oxford-Wiedenfeld Translation Prize. Sarah Death, Deborah Bragan-Turner and Neil Smith were all longlisted for the 2021 CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger, with Deborah and Neil’s translations making it to the shortlist. Saskia Vogel and Alice Menzies were both nominated for the 2021 Pen America Translation Prize, with Saskia being shortlisted for her translation of ‘Girls Lost’ by Jessica Schiefauer. B. J. Epstein was shortlisted for the 2021 Kate Greenaway Medal for her translation of Sara Lundberg’s ‘The Bird Within Me’. Sarah Death and Deborah Bragan-Turner were both shortlisted for the 2021 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel, Sarah for Håkan Nesser’s ‘The Secret Life of Mr. Roos’ and Deborah for Mikael Niemi’s ‘To Cook a Bear’, and we were delighted that Deborah was named winner.

Swedish Book Review ‘i ny dräkt’ online goes from strength to strength. Editor Alex Fleming has managed not only to publish  2 full issues online at swedishbookreview.org, but also to sneak in several smaller special issues marking events such as the virtual London Book Fair. SBR’s editorial team has also held two virtual public events this year, lending a more literary (rather than translator-y) focus to proceedings. Of course, our thanks go not only to the indefatigable Alex, but also to the team at Norvik Press who watch her back. Thanks are also due to Fiona Graham, who is stepping down in the spring as SBR’s reviews editor – her work over recent years in this department has been stellar.

SELTA’s new website finally launched properly in early January, offering a significant improvement on the old site and increasing the visibility of the organisation and its members. The SELTA Google group continues to be a valuable forum where members can ask questions and share information.

As yet, I don’t know what 2022 holds for SELTA and its members. However, we will be celebrating our 40th birthday (cue a midlife crisis?) as SELTA officially came into being on 1 January 1982. The committee is busy thinking of ways to mark this milestone appropriately. Other initiatives may include retrospectives in SBR and updates to SELTA’s official history. I don’t think I am spoiling anything by suggesting that clinking glasses and cake may feature too…

More generally, the committee plans to adopt a one meeting on, one meeting off approach. SELTA’s AGM will continue to be held virtually, enabling all members to democratically participate in SELTA’s governance, while our ordinary meeting held in the spring will be tied to the London Book Fair. Next year, this is scheduled to take place 5-7 April, and we cross our fingers for something closer to what we have been used to in the past. Whatever happens, I hope to see many of you either in person or in cyberspace in the coming months.

Gott nytt år,

Dr Ian Giles

Chair of SELTA