Swedish Translation

I am a native US English speaker with extensive UK education and work experience, as well as strong ties to Sweden. My career in translation began in 2013 with a short story by Lina Wolff published in Granta magazine, followed by the BCLT Summer School and an Emerging Translators mentorship. I continue to translate strong voices from Sweden with unique perspectives. Working as a writer, I have found, enriches my work as a translator and vice versa. I also translate (and write) for commercial clients and the screen, as well as drama.

Coming soon: Linnea Axelsson, Steve Sem-Sandberg, Johanne Lykke Holm…

 BOOKS

The Bear Woman by Karolina Ramqvist (Manilla and Coach House Books 2022)
On motherhood, the writing life, seafaring, and survival
October Child by Linda Boström Knausgård (World Editions 2021)
A fight against the dark.
Read “Longing for Our Own Lives” in the New York Times.

Many People Die Like You by Lina Wolff (And Other Stories 2020)
Short Stories from Europe with Something like Love.

Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis by  Malena and Beata Ernman, Svante and Greta Thunberg (Allen Lane/Penguin 2020)
An urgent call for global and personal change.
Co-translated with Paul Norlen.
A Guardian Book of the Week, featured in the New Yorker and more.

Girls Lost by Jessica Schiefauer (Deep Vellum 2020)
What if you could change gender for a night? 
PEN Translation Prize Finalist. Read an excerpt in Europe Now and reviews in Books and Bao and Foreword, and more.

The Summer of Kim Novak by Håkan Nesser (World Editions 2020)
Coming of age and a grisly murder in 1960s Sweden.
Publishers Weekly Starred Review

And in the Vienna Woods the Trees Remain by Elisabeth Åsbrink (Other Press 2020).
The Heartbreaking True Story of a Family Torn Apart by War.
Starred Kirkus Review, Featured in the Literary Review, Publishers Weekly, the Irish Independent, and more

The Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears by Johannes Anyuru (Two Lines 2019)
A dystopian meditation on terror and hope.
2020 Firecracker Award for Fiction
As featured in the New York Times, Harper’s, NPR, Washington Post, Book Riot, Tor and more.

The Polyglot Lovers by Lina Wolff (And Other Stories 2019)
Pleasure is an elusive thing, love even more so.
As featured in the New York Times, the Financial Times, LitHub, and Granta and more.

Acts of Infidelity by Lena Andersson (Picador   UK, 2018/Other Press USA, May 2019)
Ester Nilsson falls again.
Featured in The New York Times Book Review and the Times Literary Supplement
My essay on fact, fiction and translating Andersson is on LitHub.com along with her essay on why we shouldn’t worry about the robot takeover.


The White City by Karolina Ramqvist (Grove Atlantic, 2017)
A young mother learns how far she will go to survive on her own terms.
Read an extract at Guernica and the January 2017 edition of Europe Now Journal and reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.
My translation of an extract from It Is the Night, Ramqvist’s long essay on what it means to be a writer, was featured on LitHub. My essay on translating the novel was published by the Paris Review Daily.
“unusual intimate perspective on organized crime” Joyce Carol Oates (on Twitter)
The Anatomy of Inequality by Per Molander (Melville House, 2016)
From a country with one of the world’s lowest rates of income- and social-inequality comes a clear-eyed and timeless account that recalls Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
Read an extract on Alternet.
The Book of Palms by Johanna Ekström (Limited edition art book, 2016)
A stunning meditation on perception, mixing lyrical prose, poetry and photography by author and artist Johanna Ekström.

Read my translation of Johanna Ekström’s flash fiction in the New Yorker.

All Monsters Must Die: A Excursion to North Korea by Magnus Bärtås and Fredrik Ekman (House of Anansi, 2015)
In 1978, North Korea celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of its founding, and Kim Jong-il, who at the time is the head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, orders the kidnapping of the greatest South Korean movie star, the actress Madame Choi, and her ex-husband, the famous film director Shin Sang-ok.
In 2008, North Korea celebrates its sixtieth anniversary, and Magnus Bärtås and Fredrik Ekman take a bizarre, heavily guided tour to the world’s most isolated country.
Read an excerpt at The Literary Hub.
 Publishers Weekly Starred Review


Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? By Katrine Marçal (Portobello UK/Scribe ANZ/pegasus books USA 2016)
A takedown of 200 years of economics.
As featured in the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Pop Matters, Prospect, New Statesman, Kirkus Reviews and more.
“A smart, funny, readable book on economics, money [and] women.” Margaret Atwood (on Twitter)

SHORT PIECES AND SPECIAL PROJECTS

An extract from Johanne Lykke Holm’s witchy lyrical novel The Night Before This Day can be read in Two Lines 28.

Karolina Ramqvist’s essay on the future of Europe is available in Comma Press’s Europa28 anthology.
Swedish editor for Readux Books.
The Black Curve by Rut Hillarp (Readux Books, 2015). Read my essay on Rut Hillarp, aka Sweden’s Anais Nin, at Music&Literature.
“The Lesson” by Cilla Naumann (Readux Books, 2014)
“Where the Hollyhocks Come From” by Amanda Svensson (Readux Books, 2014)
“Fantasy” by Malte Persson (Readux Books, 2013)


Together with Swedish authors Karolina Ramqvist and Jessica Schiefauer, I’ve participated in two Exquisite Corpse story projects with SLICE magazine.
“Nuestra Señora de la Asunción” by Lina Wolff (Granta 124: Travel, 2013)
 

Guest Editor: Who Dreams of Us?: New Swedish-language Writing portfolio, March 2019.
The Memory of Secret by Ester Roxberg (excerpt from the memoir My Father, Ann-Christine for Words Without Borders’ Queer issue, 2015)
Extract from “The Boys” or, as the feature film is titled, “Girls Lost” from the novel Pojkarna for WWB’s Young Adult issue, 2014.
 
 
 
 

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