The text is rich in youth slang, and Nichola Smalley’s translation from Swedish is sensitive to its “bloodily dark poetry”. One youngster riffs on how “he hated those fuckin gangsta fuckers … that whole thug style … what even is that, ey hey yo waddup, man’s glidin in the whip”. “Choose your battles, bro,” another says.

Anna Aslanyan in The Guardian.

Well done Nicky and good luck!

On 24 March 2021, SELTA hosted a virtual event with Alice Olsson in conversation with Kira Josefsson and Saskia Vogel about their life stories, linguistic backgrounds, translation careers, writing, editing, and how all their different creative practices feed into and inform each other and their shifting creative identities, not to mention the practicalities of a creative career and how to pay the bills. The fascinating and thought-provoking result, including questions from the audience, can be viewed on SELTA’s YouTube channel here.

The Kate Greenaway Medal celebrates illustrated children’s books and The Bird Within Me is the only translation on the shortlist of eight. Sara Lundberg’s picture book is based on the life of Swedish artist Beata Hansson (1910–1994) and is published by Book Island. The results will be announced on 16 June 2021.

B. J. deserves congratulations not only for making the shortlist but for getting translated picture books out into the world.

Despite the tumultuous nature of 2020, SELTA’s membership figures remain strong – we end the year with a membership tally of 74, leaving us level against last year. It’s gratifying that even in these changing times, members value what SELTA has to offer.

While it transpired that most of us were destined not to meet in person this year, we had a virtual SELTA calendar that was arguably busier than we have been for many years of late. We hosted our first ever virtual spring meeting in early May. We also held a highly successful public event about literary translators of Swedish via Zoom together with our colleagues in North America at STiNA. This had an audience of around 75 people. You can still watch the event here. Over the summer and early autumn, we also hosted a brief series of fikastunds where smaller groups of members gathered and discussed various matters close to the hearts of SELTA members, including screen translation and working from our ‘other’ language. We wrapped up the year with our AGM in November, and we held another public event discussing the impact 2020 had on the sale of Swedish-language literature abroad (watch here). I’m delighted that we were joined by an audience of 55 people and I’m very grateful to Urpu Strellman, Judith Toth and Sofie Voller for giving up their time to join us. Indeed, as a whole I’ve been chuffed with the strong turnouts at all our events over the year and it has been lovely to see several unfamiliar faces and become reacquainted with several other long-term members. 

While we often rely on crime to bag SELTA members prize, I’m glad to report it was a good year for literary fiction as a whole. Indeed, it was an excellent year on the other side of the pond for members of SELTA: Annie Prime’s translation of ‘Maresi Red Mantle’ by Maria Turtschaninoff won the 2020 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize in the USA. Likewise, Alice Menzies reached the shortlist of the American National Book Award Best Translated Book for her translation of Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s ‘The Family Clause’. Back in the UK, Susan Beard was shortlisted for the 2020 Petrona Award for her translation of Stina Jackson’s ’The Silver Road’. Sarah Death’s translation of Tove Jansson’s ‘Letters from Tove’ was named runner up in 2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. It was also gratifying to see other members feature on award longlists, including Darcy Hurford in the John Dryden Competition and BJ Epstein for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2021, and to see several members in receipt of grants from both the Swedish Arts Council and FILI. 

On the subject of prizes, don’t forget that we are entering the final straight for submissions to the next round of the Bernard Shaw Prize with final entries due within the next few weeks. Make sure that you engage with your publishers to get your titles entered!

I am thrilled that SBR’s outgoing and incoming editors, Deborah Bragan-Turner and Alex Fleming, have managed to successfully launch SBR’s new online platform at swedishbookreview.org. This has only been possible thanks to their hard work, as well as the patient help of Essi Viitanen and Cath Jenkins at Norvik Press, and the team at web developer Big Mallet. The site really is stunning, and the material from the 2020 ‘issue’ is first rate. We look forward to seeing what emerges in 2021! 

One significant avenue of focus during 2020 has been the preparation of this new website. We were very pleased to secure a grant from the Swedish Arts Council in the spring which has allowed us to bring SELTA’s web presence into the 2020s. Kate Lambert and I worked together with Peter Urwin, a web developer based in Edinburgh, to prepare the new site. 

In 2021, the calendar is currently looking rather empty. However, I’m certain that more events will come along to fill it. As ever, SELTA will hold two formal meetings in the coming year – with details on the how and where to follow with plenty of notice. I remain hopeful that I will see many of you in person in the coming year, and failing that I embrace the opportunity to see you all in cyberspace.

Best wishes for the new year ahead!

Dr Ian Giles

Chair of SELTA

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.

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

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

On 1 November SELTA members were joined by a panel of three book bloggers who spoke to us about world literature, blogging and the unexpected benefits of sharing their interest in books with other readers. All three of our guest speakers – Ann Morgan, Stu Allen and Bookwitch – have a strong international dimension to their blogs.

The blogger known as Bookwitch, who originally hails from Sweden but has lived in the UK for quite some time now, posts in English as well as Swedish on books for children and young adults. Of books that have been translated from English into Swedish or vice versa, Bookwitch prefers some in Swedish and others in their English version, because the two versions can have slightly different voices and tones. She especially enjoys meeting and interviewing authors for both of her book blogs: a few days before her visit to SELTA, she had conducted an in-depth interview with the popular German author Cornelia Funke. There have been occasions when young readers have found an interview with a favourite author on her blog and mistakenly thought Bookwitch was actually that author herself!

Stu Allen’s blog has a clear focus on the literary end of the spectrum. Stu has been blogging about his interest in world literature for the past eight years and has built up an impressive record of over 600 reviews on his site. He enjoys identifying common themes and features among books from different places. For example, villages often have similar casts of characters no matter where they’re located in the world – you can recognise certain familiar types. Stu is active on social media as well. He originated the #translationthurs hashtag on Twitter, which helps users connect with others who share an interest in reading international fiction. Stu is enthusiastic about helping people to discover world literature and says you can find all kinds of ways in, such as books that feature a particular sport or are set in an interesting location.

When she realised she had read mainly books from the Anglophone world in the year preceding the London Olympics, Ann Morgan set herself a new challenge to read a book from every country in the world in a single year. She named her project A Year of Reading the World and by the time the year was over, her endeavour had taken on some exciting and unexpected dimensions. People from all over the globe got in touch to make suggestions, and Ann received a publishing deal to write up her experiences as a book of her own. Some countries’ writing proved difficult to obtain in English translation, but translators and readers pitched in to contribute stories for Ann to read and review on her blog. Even now, nearly five years after she launched the project, people continue to discover her blog and suggest their favourite books. Ann says there is clearly an interest and an appetite for books from around the world. People are generous and excited about sharing stories.

In the Q&A period following the panellists’ presentations of their blogging activities, SELTA members wanted to know what they do with all the books. All three bloggers said they’re regularly offered free books from publishers’ publicity departments and have to turn some down. Local libraries and charity shops receive some of the volumes after they’ve been read. Bookwitch sizes up children of her acquaintance in order to match young readers with age-appropriate titles. The panellists also asked us about our work as translators. SELTA members’ opinions were divided on whether it’s necessary to read a book all the way through before starting to translate it: one camp says it’s impossible to understand the text sufficiently without reading it first; according to the other school of thought, that’s what the second draft is for.

On behalf of SELTA, I’d like to thank all three of our guest speakers for travelling into London just to speak to us and for giving us some really interesting thoughts from their perspectives as readers and book bloggers.