Update

I've been busy with translation work for the past month or two - hopefully I will have time to update this blog a bit later.

Still here...

Apologies for the long silence, but I have to admit that there are times - sometimes quite lengthy ones - in the year when my reading leaves the path of foreign fiction and poetry and returns to the field of British and American writing. Since I acquired a Kindle DX as a birthday gift from my daughter a couple of months ago I've been catching up on my acquaintance with the work of some major British authors, in particular Julian Barnes, whose Flaubert's Parrot I read years ago when it first appeared, and was fascinated by. Now at last with the help of Amazon and the Kindle I've managed to read several more of Barnes's novels and collections of essays, including Metroland  and his most recent book, Nothing To Be Frightened Of, both of which strike me as quite unlike anything else in contemporary British fiction.

Which leads me to conclude that, given the flexibility of Blogger and blogging, it might not be a bad idea to at some stage widen the scope of this blog to include a wider range of writing, and escape from the purely "Nordic" ambit...

I'll be thinking about this in the days and weeks ahead, and may reorganize or rename the blog accordingly (maybe even start a new one).

Happy birthday, Nordic Voices

This blog is now one year old. What began as a team effort between several Nordic-oriented translators, conceived as an alternative (or challenge?) to the Swedish-only focus of SELTA and Swedish Book Review, has developed over the months in several different directions. The initial emphasis on translation and translation topics has receded, while the sometimes relentless foraging among the work of obscure and little-read Scandinavian authors has given way to what I hope is a more balanced presentation of literary texts considered for their own sake rather than for that of encyclopedic inclusiveness or specifically "Nordic" content.

The blog became solely my own when I decided to allow posts on subjects that don't necessarily have a "literary" connection or context, but do reflect social and other attitudes prevalent in the countries of Northern Europe and Scandinavia. Some of my colleagues seem to have thought that this was cheating - but it may just have been that the strains of accommodating strongly differing approaches to the subject of Scandinavian writing and reality were too great to be contained within a single blog.

Anyway, Nordic Voices (often, but not always, in translation) will continue to follow its basic aim of acting as a listening post or sounding board for what is new, or characteristic, or troubling, or pleasing about the Nordic literary scene and life in the Nordic countries today. It will do so less in terms of scholarly reviews and studies than by means of intermittent, sometimes even fragmentary presentations, translations and news items drawn from the Web, the media and above all from the work and statements of authors themselves. My hope is that readers who have little or no knowledge of the languages of the region can gain some familiarity with what is happening in Northern Europe today, through the often enlightening prism of creative writing.

Happy birthday, Nordic Voices!

Break

Nordic Voices is taking a short break. Posting will resume in a week or so.

SELTA, etc.

Well, I've sent off my annual SELTA subscription renewal - by my calculations it's now 29 years since I first joined the society, and I guess it hasn't really changed much in all that time, in spite of some members' aspirations to give it a wider focus. This time last year members were arguing the pros and cons of a broader coverage of Nordic literature in general, then this blog was formed, then it broke up and became a one-man effort - and SELTA stayed the same.

My situation is still that, like other members, although I've done a fair amount of literary translation from Swedish, it's not my only field of activity - my most recent publication is a book of poetry translations from Danish, and I'm currently planning another one. But SELTA still fulfils an important function in keeping the U.K.'s various Nordic translators in contact with one another. Even if the pan-Nordic element is underplayed to the advantage of a Swedish emphasis, and many of the associate members have published little by way of literary translations, this continues to be a unique professional body - for translation is after all a profession, rather than an academic subject or a stop-gap, subsidiary activity, as this intelligent post by B.J. Epstein points out.

Guest posts and others

As some readers will be aware, last September this blog passed from being a group endeavour to the status of a one-man blog. There were several reasons for this, I guess, though foremost among them was the issue of the Aftonbladet "IDF organ theft" article and the Swedish government's depressing reaction to it (look it up in the search box). The reaction of some of the blog's readers, as evidenced by their comments, was also a sticking point, as well as the inevitable slanging match that ensued over issues of "freedom of speech".

However, now that a new year is upon us, I'm hoping that it may be possible to restore the blog to the kind of Nordic literature forum it was in its earlier days. Nordic-related translations, book reviews, and articles on literary and other topics are welcome, and can be sent to the email address that figures in my Blogger profile.

This blog

Readers may recall that this blog began last March, when some members of the Swedish literary translators' association SELTA decided it was time to try to create a forum or Web resource that might be of interest to translators and readers of all Nordic literature, not just Swedish (and occasionally Finland-Swedish). Another SELTA meeting - the AGM - is to be held early  in November, but to judge from the minutes and agenda that have just been sent out to members, there's not much likelihood of a change of direction, contrary to the expectations that arose earlier in the year.

It seems a pity that the association should be so closed within itself - although it's now running on a faster server, the website isn't updated very often (let's hope that changes), and the Google group is apparently members-only. Maybe SELTA needs to go onto Facebook or another networking service and interact with a wider public.

Now that Nordic Voices is my personal blog, I feel I want to continue posting here rather than taking part in more SELTA business and discussion. That way perhaps there's a better chance of reaching readers rather than fellow-translators (sometimes a cheerful experience, but not always), and of continuing to trace the links between the literatures and cultures of the different Nordic countries, and their links with the world at large.

Nordic Voices on Facebook

I've now imported Nordic Voices to Facebook, where it's a networked blog. It's possible to "follow" the blog there, though I'm still getting used to the workings of the slightly clunky networking "application", and it may be that my FB settings prevented the sending of some of the invitation messages. Please be tolerant if you get one twice.

David

Changes

As of today, Nordic Voices is my own personal blog. For a while - since its inception half a year ago, in fact -  it was an experimental team blog, but differences of editorial opinion together with a general lack of input from most of the contributors have led me to conclude that it's time for me to take this step.

My intention is that the blog will  go on covering the same range of subjects and topics as before. Thanks are due to those who have contributed posts in the past, and I hope they will continue to follow Nordic Voices together with the rest of the readers. Comments are off for the time being, but I may turn them back on again once the changes have settled in.

David