Central Song

Reviewing Gösta Ågren’s new collection Centralsång, Michel Ekman writes about the “deceptive calm” of Ågren’s poetry:

Vår plikt är att minnas grymheten, men själva minnesakten kräver ett mått av ro och avskildhet... En dal i våldet hette det stora urval ur sin produktion som Gösta Ågren en gång gav ut. Spänningen mellan å ena sidan iakttagandet / formulerandet och å andra sidan det blinda och ständiga våldet som genomsyrar tillvaron går igenom hela hans författarskap.

Ark Books, Copenhagen

Ditte Nesdam Madsen writes from Copenhagen:

Ark Books, a new international bookshop at Møllegade 10 in Copenhagen from spring 2014. We are opening the doors as an English bookshop selling all types of books from classics to new undiscovered titles that normally wouldn't reach the Danish market. We are also going to have a small selection from the other big European languages as French, German, Italian etc. We are also going to promote our wonderful Danish literature to non-Danish speaking readers in Copenhagen by selling Danish Literature in translation.

We are all volunteers and the shop is going to be non-profit. 

For the moment, we're working hard to achieve the dream. However, it is difficult to get funding to a small work-in-progress project based on literature. We have therefore created a crowdfunding campaign with wonderful gifts. You can check it out here: 

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ark-books-copenhagen-a-non-profit-english-language-bookshop/x/5282177

Besides that we're having an event December 5th in the cellar of Literaturhaus with the Danish author Helle Helle and her translator Martin Aitken. The author and the translator are going to read the book in Danish and English and afterwards they will discuss the relationship between author and translator and translation as a discipline. Feel free to join us for this amazing night! We're planning on having several events as this one, once the shop is open.

Molossus

In its World Poetry Portfolio series, Molossus literary quarterly has published a selection of poems by Pia Tafdrup in my translation.