Published translations

Literary fiction

• Hjalmar Söderberg: Martin Birck's Youth [Martin Bircks ungdom]
. Norwich: Norvik Press, 2004. ISBN 9781870041577
• Hjalmar Söderberg: A Dug wi Nae Maister [En herrelös hund]. Scots translation published in Lallans, the journal of the Scots Language Society, No. 103, 2023. ISSN 1359-3587
• Hjalmar Söderberg: Smirr [Duggregnet]. Scots translation published in Lallans, the journal of the Scots Language Society, No. 104, 2024. ISSN 1359-3587. Winner of the Scots Language Society's competition for translation into Scots in 2024.

Biographical fiction/true crime

• Maria Bouroncle: It Came to Me on a Whim [Det kom för mig i en hast]
. Copenhagen: Saga Egmont, 2022. ISBN 9788728446096

Erotic fiction

• Malva B: Desire—erotic short stories [Begär—oanständiga berättelser]. Copenhagen:
 Saga Egmont Lust, 2019. ISBN 9788726267891

Full-length book samples

Narrative non-fiction

• Anders Björklund: Return of the Forest Spirit: The Repatriation Journey of the G’psgolox Totem Pole [Hövdingens totempåle. Om konsten att utbyta gåvor].
 Translation commissioned 2019 by the Royal BC Museum, Victoria, BC, Canada, with funding from the Swedish Arts Council. Publication cancelled for reasons unconnected with the translation. The English rights have reverted to the author.
  
  

About me

I'm a native speaker of English, born and educated in the UK. I lived in Canada for 10 years and returned to Scotland in 2017, settling in Perth.

I've been in business as a translator since 1996, working mainly with creative commercial writing from Swedish and Norwegian to English. I occasionally also translate from Danish, Dutch and German, and recently started translating into Scots.

I hold an MA degree from the University of Edinburgh and a postgraduate diploma in translation from the University of Surrey. While living in Canada, I passed the official Canadian (CTTIC) certified translator exam and the American Translators Association (ATA) certification exam.

I'm a member of the Society of Authors Translators Association and the Scots Language Society.

My Scots translation of one of Hjalmar Söderberg's Historietter, a classic of Swedish literature, was the 2024 winner of the John McPhail Law Tassie, the Scots Language Society's translation prize.

For more information, please visit my website at www.albascan.com.