Swedish Literature

[Eric]

Thanks, Stewart, for mentioning the positive changes in the promotion of Swedish literature. For a while, Sweden actually stopped awarding grants altogether for the translation of Swedish literature. Then, such a stink was caused, not least by a number of British translators of Swedish literature, that after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, the grants system was reorganised. But it's still split across a couple of organisations, which makes it a bit cumbersome.

Nevertheless, one very positive thing Sweden has now got (the Norwegians at NORLA have had it for a while now) is paying translators to do promotional excerpts from Swedish novels and other works. I've already applied for such a grant, but whether I'll get one, I do not of course know, as the deadline is in the autumn.

As I know very well how much work is involved, just having translated 6,500 words of promotional excerpts over the past few days, such an amount of words can involve two working days at the very least. This is because the average rate you can realistically translate per day is between 1,500 and 2,500 words. Because as Thomas Warburton says, you lose concentration after about four hours' work.

The excerpt-for-promotion grant is a flat-rate 5,000 Swedish kronor per go (i.e. ?420), however big your excerpt is. That's a nice bit of encouragement.

Such grants are very encouraging, and it shows that Sweden is getting its act together after a period of uncertainty, when all the people who want to translate Swedish literature were getting rather worried, and wondering whether to start doing Danish or Norwegian books instead. (Most people don't attempt to learn Finnish over the weekend to enhance their job chances...)

Travel grants are good too, especially for those translators living in North America and who can't just pop over to Sweden as we can do within Europe. And also paying to get Swedish authors out to other countries for promotion is important. Literature does cost money.

 

[Stewart]

Such grants are very encouraging, and it shows that Sweden is getting its act together after a period of uncertainty, when all the people who want to translate Swedish literature were getting rather worried, and wondering whether to start doing Danish or Norwegian books instead.

For purely selfish reasons I think someone should translate August Strindberg's The Red Room. Looking around it seems the last time it saw an English translation was in the sixties, with no copies available. Hint hint, whoever's listening.

 

[Eric]

Stewart, here are two websites with books by and about Strindberg that do exist in translation:

August Strindberg - Translations

August Strindberg, playwright - author of 'Lady Julie' ('Miss Julie') publisher Amber Lane Press

Eivor Martinus, author of 'Strindberg and Love' and Strindberg translations. Amber Lane Press

 

[Eric]

While there are several threads now about individual Swedish writers, this overview thread about Swedish literature as a whole has not really flourished recently.

I decided just recently to read a book called "Modern svenk litteratur 1940-1972" by the Dane Torben Brostr?m. Brostr?m tries to cover most of the more important Swedish authors, in alternate prose and poetry sections, between these two dates.

The book starts rather stimulatingly with the years of "beredskap" meaning defence preparedness, should the Nazis try to invade Sweden during WWII. But the section I've just read on the poetry of the 1940s seems agonisingly sterile.

I'm hoping that Brostr?m's survey of the prose for that period is more interesting. I think it will be, judging by the authors taken up there.

But I think that Swedish literature really takes off with the Modernism of the 1950s.

More, when I've read more.

 

[Bjorn]

For instance, one rather Gothic, contemporary Swedish novelist and dramatist called Alexander Ahndoril (born 1967) has written what look to be interesting postmodernistish novels. However, the only one of his books translated into English so far is based on the life of Ingmar Bergman. See:

Alexander Ahndoril - novelist and playwright - Home

What I find significant is that this book, with its Bergman connection, is Ahndoril's eighth novel, but the first one to be translated into English, although his first novel was published back in 1989. The above website has a section in English and one in Swedish. The English part has no mention of his other seven novels, whereas, if you can read Swedish, there is a list of all the titles. Obviously, English-speakers have no interest in books they can't read. Languages open doors.

Funnily enough, Ahndoril (and his wife, Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril) were just revealed to be behind The Hypnotist, published under the pseudonym Lars Kepler and already sold to publishers worldwide as "the new Stieg Larsson" for ridiculous sums.

The lesson? A bit of mystery never hurt sales. Or to quote 90% of Swedish book buyers who lapped up the hype, "Alexander who?"

 

[Eric]

Oh no, not more clever pseudonyms. Self-centred Dutch New York genius Arnold Gruntbug also wrote under the pseudonym of Marek van der Jagt. Why on Earth do people who are already famousish as authors, play silly-bugger games with readers and noms-de-plume?

I met Ahndoril briefly in London. He seems a nice chap, but this husband and wife team (with the name Coelho thrown into hers, for good measure; his real surname is Gustafsson) does seem rather too publicity-seeking for my taste. The only book of his that I know of that has appeared in English is the one about Ingmar Bergman (translator Sarah Death).

I'm more enthused by the recent and provocative manifesto by half a dozen younger Swedish writers, promising various things. English summary at:

Nordic Voices in Translation: An ambitious literary manifesto

Original newspaper article:

Manifest f?r ett nytt litter?rt decennium - DN.se

These authors may not practise what they preach in the long run, but their spirit is encouraging.

 

[Bjorn]

I'm more enthused by the recent and provocative manifesto by half a dozen younger Swedish writers, promising various things. English summary at:

Nordic Voices in Translation: An ambitious literary manifesto

Original newspaper article:

Manifest f?r ett nytt litter?rt decennium - DN.se

These authors may not practise what they preach in the long run, but their spirit is encouraging.

And luckily, a bunch of other writers (several of which are so much better writers than the half-dozen above that it's ridiculous) quickly published a counter-manifesto promising to do whatever the hell they want and call it "novel".

The Swedish novel has brown eyes and black hair, it's bald, green-eyed, blind and hook-nosed. It carries a collection of poetry in its front pocket, a passport in its back pocket, and wears high heels. It can be mistaken for sermons, stand-up comedy, phone books, programmes, manuals or software. It loves difficulties that break down doors, finds shortcuts and uses a cheat sheet, and if need be it will have a fling with journalism, as it's done since Almqvist's days.

The Swedish novel can get stoned and attack whoever the fuck it wants. The Swedish novel is out of its tiny mind sometimes, when it wants to. It comes from behind and takes names, living and dead.

The unlimited potential of prose fiction makes it an art form like the others,and it needs crop rotation, openness, conflicts, meetings and 20,000 leagues under the sea to fulfil its potential as the most important reference point for any dialogue whatsoever. We want to write books that are read, worn, torn out of people's hands by angry tax payers, borrowed and spread around, also quoted, imitated and translated. We want to make the whole 3rd millennium the age of limitless, expansive fiction.

Personally I think both sides make good points, even if the first loses points with me for some rather uncalled-for attacks on excellent writers like Jonas Hassen Khemiri and Martina Lowden. But at least it's a discussion about literature rather than sales figures and PR campaigns.

 

[Eric]

Now it's already called "Manifestdebatten" (The Manifesto Debate) in the Swedish press, with everybody and their mothers weighing in.

What puts me off the counterblast people is the fact that they presumably never thought of writing a manifesto themselves till they had one to react against. This is the eternally dreadful side of the rather incestuous Swedish literary world: the debates and counter-debates, which then get plastered all over the arts pages of the newspapers. Secondly, these reactors feel they have to use words like "fuck" (or "fan" in Swedish) to accentuate their arguments. This has a ring of sulky adolescence about it. "Jag s?ger vad fan jag vill."

Ultimately, literature is to be read. So if people write too many 600-page bald, green-eyed novels with a whiff of Finnegans Wake, mutual back-patting and in-jokes, no normal person will read them. But these same works will be endlessly debatterade by the Horaces of this world (and I don't mean the Roman poet) and cohorts of would-be authors.

However, structured and politely analytical attacks are merited if you really don't like the authors' works. Their books are being attacked, but they will inevitably feel attacked indirectly themselves. We can't live in a literary world where no one dare say they think a book or ?uvre is crap for fear of not being politically correct. I hate njas?geri (sitting on the fence) which is rather popular in Sweden. But debates do go on too long; people don't know when they've said enough.

The original manifesto writers stirred the shit a little. Unfortunately, instead of authors getting on with writing a few books, we've now got another of those student-style debates. I took part in them a bit, when I used to sit in the student pub with the crowd centred around the publication Hj?rnstorm. But I've now realised that most of these debates are hot air, and have little to do with the true state of literature, but are very much ego-driven. G?ran Greider, whom I remember from his younger days, sitting in Ofvendahl's genteel caf? in Uppsala acting the proletarian, has also jumped on the bandwagon with his One-Man Manifesto.

For those of us that can read Swedish, the manifestos are here.

The original one:

Manifest f?r ett nytt litter?rt decennium - DN.se

The counterblast:

Manifest f?r en olovlig litteratur - DN.se

G?ran Greider's one-man show:

G?ran Greider skriver under ett enmansmanifest - DN.se

As Bj?rn suggests, I'm sure that there is a grain of truth in what both groups (and Greider) say. But ultimately, a writer's job is to write books, and sounding off for months at a time in the press does rather distract the authors from writing. So my message to the Swedish intelligentsia is: "No more kulturdebatt, more novels and poetry." A good slogan for a manifesto, I feel.

 

[Bjorn]

Ultimately, literature is to be read. So if people write too many 600-page bald, green-eyed novels with a whiff of Finnegans Wake, mutual back-patting and in-jokes, no normal person will read them. But these same works will be endlessly debatterade by the Horaces of this world (and I don't mean the Roman poet) and cohorts of would-be authors.

In theory, sure, except among the novelists who were not-named-but-alluded-to in the first "manifesto" were several best-sellers, ranging from shit like chic lit and "Kepler" to, like I said, excellent writers like Khemiri and Lundkvist. As much as they try to make it about "readable" vs "unreadable", ultimately their beef seems to be more with form and content than sales figures. And they're not even sure what they're saying there; seriously, denouncing the use of real persons in fiction in one breath and praising Johnson, Lagerl?f and Ekman in the next? Or saying that language shouldn't matter to a writer? (Though having read Jesper H?gstr?m, whose day job is to write about football, I can see how he might be annoyed by writers who know how to spin a phrase.) To me, while the slam against cheap sensationalism in fiction is very welcome, the first manifesto reads largely like a bunch of average writers demanding that nobody write anything they themselves can't.

 

[Eric]

I have to say that I thought the first manifesto was fun, not least because it said a few politically incorrect things. But now that Gordan, Thente, Elensky and Greider have jumped onto the bandwagon, the whole things has broken down into the usual diffuse debatt.

I note that SvD, Sydsvenskan, Aftonbladet and GP are not half as eager as DN and Expressen to encourage this debate. (I think the Gottsunda debate is more interesting; I could never have imagined that people would start setting fire to cars in genteel and sleepy Uppsala. Though Gottsunda has had a bad reputation for decades. It sounds to be getting a bit like the suburbs of Paris.)

If I read a Swedish literary blog, I like Bodil Zalesky's serious one, written from Berlin, if I understand rightly. But I'm open to suggestions about other good Swedish literary blogs, if you know any.

 

[Flower]

Im currently reading Per Olav Enquist, a great swedish writer!

 

[Eric]

Yes, Flower, I see that you started a thread on him back in April. That was, no doubt, an expression of your enthusiasm even then.

Which book are you reading now? I've only read "Legion?rerna", and that was decades ago. But I remember he wrote the script for the film about tribades.

 

[Flower]

Yes, Flower, I see that you started a thread on him back in April. That was, no doubt, an expression of your enthusiasm even then.

Which book are you reading now? I've only read "Legion?rerna", and that was decades ago. But I remember he wrote the script for the film about tribades.

Well, Im finally reading "Captain Nemos library"!

Earlier this year I read his biography and therefor I have the background story for when Enquist wrote "Captain Nemos library" which is great but not needed. The biography its self is a great book and he really puts himself out there all "naked".

Enquist is not the same great master of words as Per Petterson from Norway, but he has another great way of telling a story and getting the Scandinavian touch in. He has a way of going back to telling a story from a childs point of view without making it into literature for children and while you get a sense of remembering these feelings yourself. Hard to explain but I hope you know what I mean?

I still have several of his books in my TBR pile, which is not told from a child?s point of view. But I bet that Enquist will do great as other people have mentioned.

 

[Eric]

To return to the discussion of the Swedish literary manifesto debate, as discussed in postings #26 to #30 here, I see that the news has hit the Guardian:

Swedish writers battle over storytelling | Books | guardian.co.uk

The original Magnificent Seven (Susanne Axmacher, Jesper H?gstr?m, Sven Olov Karlsson, Jens Liljestrand, Anne Sw?rd, Jerker Virdborg and Pauline Wolff) have now written an Appendix to their original Manifesto for a New Literary Decade, explaining some points.

After reading that appendix (which Alison Flood of the Guardian has not yet summarised), I regard these seven people as having a more level-headed and adult approach to the debate than the 32 people who signed the counterblast called Manifesto for Illicit / Unlawful / Prohibited Literature (take your pick). I found this counterblast rich in rhetoric, clever-dickery, and grandstanding, far beyond any such sins in the original manifesto.

The original seven stick to their guns. They do not use screamy lists of words, but soberly re?terate their original points, with a number of additions:

1) They want to get back to telling stories in novels, something that they claim has been lacking for a decade. Their manifesto is said to be a critique of several tendencies in today's young Swedish prose.

2) They say that some people have understood their manifesto as constituting a prohibition. They stress they are only saying what they themselves intend to do.

3) They say that they've heard views that people shouldn't criticise colleagues. They agree. They want to analyse and criticise texts, not people.

4) They deny that their approach will lead to insipid or trivial prose. Or be some kind of levelling. They say that, in any case, the styles of the seven signatories differ a good deal.

5) They claim not to represent literary conservatism. They point out that the so-called "retromodernist" tendency in young Swedish authors' prose recently has in itself been rather conservative in that it reaches back to the heyday of Modernism at the beginning of the 20th century. They say that Modernism is no longer avant garde and they think that writing epic novels would be a more "revolutionary" approach for young Swedish authors.

6) They don't think that at present enough young writers write in the way they prescribe or suggest. They want to rise to the challenge of making what young authors write readable, loved, respected and debated.

7) Their manifesto will not lead to cringing to readers or publishers. They don't understand what all the fuss is about. Writing readable literature is not a synonym of sycophancy. They regard literature as too important for that.

8) They say that want to show what makes their characters tick in a novel novel they want, not merely listen to their "voices".

9) They don't like the way that the biographical novel has developed. They say that mixing fiction and biography of dead people is speculative and ethically dodgy. (I take this to be a sideswipe at Ahndoril's recent Bergman book, an exercise in "faction".) The seven want to convey what the writers themselves experience personally, rather than relying on the experiences of others.

10) They claim that right now, four months befoe the new decade arrives, they've already started practising what they're preaching.

*

I hope I've managed to convey the gist here. I feel that with their sober and serious approach they are winning the argument so far. It's 7 against 32. The David & Goliath fight is being won so far by the small bloke with the sling (OK, four of them and three lasses).

 

[Eric]

Never mind what the Swedes themselves write, what about the writers they invite to their country?

The online press tells me that there have been several events in the capital, Stockholm, recently, involving foreign authors. Compared with the lack of foreign authors at Cheltenham, they are rather a lot.

While I can't imagine that the Kurds and Chinese I read about have been widely read in Swedish translation (or the original, in the case of Donner), I can imagine that Olga Tokarczuk, J?rn Donner, and Jeanette Winterson have.

Does London have such a through-put of well-known foreign authors, I wonder? Events linked to pre-existing translations, so you can buy them and have them signed. Those who live in London, please shout.

 

[waalkwriter]

Okay, if my reading list is really long, what is the one Swedish book I just have to read?

 

[Eric]

That is a bit of a tough question. Imagine asking:

Okay, if my reading list is really long, what is the one English book I just have to read?

 

[waalkwriter]

That is a bit of a tough question. Imagine asking: what is the one English novel I should read if my list is long.

I'd answer you, The Sound and the Fury. Though I like Absalom, Absalom, if only for quotes like 'The past isn't even passed'. I do have a premade answer for a such a question though, lol. I just want one or two options, that in your opinion, are the best there is in Swedish literature.

 

[Daniel del Real]

I'd answer you, The Sound and the Fury. Though I like Absalom, Absalom, if only for quotes like 'The past isn't even passed'. I do have a premade answer for a such a question though, lol. I just want one or two options, that in your opinion, are the best there is in Swedish literature.

Is there anything you like besides Faulkner. That little question just popped from my mind.

 

[waalkwriter]

LOL.

Of course, I like John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, Pasternak, Gore Vidal, Dave Eggers, J.M.G. Le Clezio, Graham Greene, Gabriel Marquez, Jorge Borges, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, E.M. Forester, James Joyce, J.R. Tolkien, T.S. Elliot, Robert Penn Warren, Robert Frost, Edgar Allen Poe, Eugene O'Neil, Edward Albee, Herman Hesse, Arthur Rimbaud, Jose Saramago, Umberto Eco, Kenzaburo Oe, Octavio Paz, Thomas Wolfe not sure about Carlos Fuentes, and Brett Eaton Ellis to name just a few of the authors I really like.

Obviously though Faulkner is a God among heroes.