If you think about it, all languages are made up – some are just more open about it than others.

In The Universal Translator, Yens Wahlgren heads up an expedition through time, space and multiple universes to explore the words that have built worlds. From the classic constructed languages of Star Trek and Tolkien to (literally) Orwellian Newspeak and pop-culture sensations such as Game of Thrones, The Witcher and The Mandalorian, this is your portal to over a hundred realms and lexicons – and perhaps the starting point to creating your own.

Why did it take us 5,000 years to attach wheels to a suitcase? How did bras take us to the moon? And what does whale hunting have to do with our economy?

Bestselling author Katrine Marçal reveals the shocking ways our deeply ingrained ideas about gender continue to hold us back. Every day, extraordinary inventions and innovative ideas are side-lined in a world that remains subservient to men.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. From the beginning of time, women have been pivotal to our society, offering ingenious solutions to some of our most vexing problems. More recently, it is women who have transformed the way we shop online, revolutionised the lives of disabled people and put the climate crisis at the top of the agenda.

Despite these successes, we still fail to find and fund the game-changing ideas that could alter the future of our planet, giving just 3% of venture capital to female founders. Instead, ingrained ideas about men and women continue to shape our economic decisions; favouring men and leading us to the same tired set of solutions.

For too long we have underestimated the consequences of sexism in our economy, and the way it holds all of us – women and men – back. Katrine Marcal’s blistering critique sets the record straight and shows how, in a time of crisis, the ingenuity and intelligence of women is that very thing that can save us.

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,” since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn—have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.

But there will be no turning back.

Not long after they’ve set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing. As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes startlingly clear to Alice:

They are not alone.

They’re looking for the truth…
But what if it finds them first?

Come find out.

Finalist 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature

Longlisted for the 2021 Pen Translation Prize

Many exciting things happen in this book that is translated from Swedish and where I have written words here to extend this point.

It is the summer of 1852 in Kengis, a village in the far north of Sweden, where revivalist preacher Lars Levi Laestadius and Jussi, his young Sami protégé, set out to solve a heinous crime.

Winner of the Petrona Award 2021.

An art book for children and curious grown-ups.

A toot or a blow,
A honk or a squeak,
Each fart is special,
Each fart is unique!

A laugh-out-loud illustrated journey into the secret world of farts.

In this desolate, paranoid landscape of ‘police eyes’ and ‘police ears’, the obedient citizen and middle-ranking scientist Leo Kall discovers a drug that will force anyone who takes it to tell the truth. But can private thought really be obliterated? Karin Boye’s chilling novel of creeping alienation shows the dangers of acquiescence and the power of resistance, no matter how futile.

This is the freestanding sequel to Andreas Norman’s International Dagger shortlisted debut novel.

Maria Hamberg’s story of two brothers “Erik and Gustav” describes the collapse of the Sandö bridge in 1939, a tragedy overlooked due to the Second World War starting on the following day.

In Grzegorz Flakierski’s story “To Lunde” an old lady remembers the workers’ uprising in 1930 when the Swedish army was called in to stop the protest against strike-breakers and five people were killed.

Mats Jonsson’s contribution is an autobiographical comic strip translated by Mikael Weichbrodt.

Bo R Holmberg’s story “When the river was timber” is a clear evocation of life at the Sandslån log sorting station in the 1950s.

Thérese Söderlind’s final tale takes us far back to 1675 and the witch trials in which about seventy people were sentenced to death on the testimony of their children.

‘It’s a beautifully written and perceptive book, that also poses sharp questions about environmental nostalgia and the true value of species.’ – Number 4 of the ‘Best Books of the Year 2018’, Steven Poole, The Daily Telegraph

‘[T]he projects Kornfeldt writes about are incredibly compelling, given that we are living through a mass-extinction event that threatens the stability of the world’s ecosystems.’ – The New Yorker

‘The author’s careful synthesis of accomplishment versus aspiration is also spot-on—even world-class scientists will be dreamers, and there is much more research to be conducted before mammoths once again lumber across the tundra. Wondrous tales of futuristic science experiments that happen to be true.’ – Kirkus Reviews

‘In her cleverly titled book, The Re-origin of the Species, Swedish science journalist Torill Kornfeldt examines the world’s most famous (or perhaps most infamous) attempts to resurrect extinct species … Crisscrossing the globe to interview the world’s leading experts on de-extinction, she offers her personal impressions of their laboratories, their research, and even their motivations … The Re-Origin of the Species is a welcome addition to the growing corpus on de-extinction, and a strong debut by a gifted writer.’ – Abraham H. Gibson, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Stony Brook University.

A nameless man and woman argue, remember, accuse, break up, reconcile and break up again, flinging insults, often in quotes from European literature and poetry to films and song lyrics. Described by the author as a homage to Strindberg and Märta Tikkanen, it has similarities with Tikkanen’s Love Story of the Century, after which it takes its Swedish title, Århundradets kärlekskrig (Love war of the century).

‘Åsbrink’s elegant prose (translated by Fiona Graham) offers a lyrical history of a year that seems both recent and ancient.’ – The Spectator

‘[Åsbrink’s] careful juxtaposition of disparate events highlights an underlying interconnectedness and suggests a new way of thinking about the postwar era.’ – The New Yorker

‘[A]n extraordinary achievement.’ – The New York Times

‘Åsbrink works with great subtlety, allowing us to make our own judgments and trace any parallels or echoes with the present. Fiona Graham deserves credit for her remarkable translation.’ – The National

‘Like an image created from a thousand juxtaposed pixels, Åsbrink builds a cumulative picture of 1947 … Less a work of history, her book is more like an ingeniously constructed novel.’ – The Jewish Chronicle

Longlisted for the 2019 JQ Wingate Prize and the 2018 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. A 2017 English Pen award-winner, and a Metro book of the year (2017).