New Swedish Books, autumn 2019 1
New Swedish Books 46 A PUBLISHER’S PERSPECTIVE Va
lgerður Benediktsdóttir During the summer Swedish Literature Exchange has run an exchange program for Icelandic and Swedish publishers. Each group has visited the other’s capital city. Valgerður Benediktsdóttir from Forlagið sends this report about how a visit from Barack Obama to Stockholm almost stopped her in her tracks, but how a deal was eventually closed. Of all the excellent meetings we had with publishers and agents in Stockholm, the last one was really epic! Barack Obama was in town to discuss climate change with, amongst other people, Greta Thunberg. As a result, a huge traffic jam had developed on the Friday morning. At the hotel they told me that no taxi services would accept bookings until after 10 o‘clock so I hurried out onto the street with my suitcase. I wanted to visit one more publisher before setting off for the airport. After a long struggle I finally managed to find a cab. But we made no progress, and for 45 minutes the only thing the driver did was bang his steering wheel and curse loudly. By now I was hopelessly late for the meeting. I was able to stay in touch with the sweet people at the publishing house, Flo Förlag, through my mobile, discussing a book that had been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize. In the end my driver gave up, turned around, and took me straight out to the airport instead. Waiting for me when I landed in Iceland a few hours later was an offer for the book from Flo and the message: “How many publishers can brag about Obama interfering in their affairs? Now we can!” Over the next 12 months Forlagið will in fact be publishing almost twenty new Swedish titles, both for children and adults. The next Swedish book we are publishing is Scenes from the Heart by Greta Thunberg and others. Whatever we can do to improve people’s attitudes towards climate issues is important, and we are proud to do our bit in that respect. Beata Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Malena Ernman, Svante Thunberg Scenes from the Heart, 2018, non-fiction, 240 p. Publisher Bokförlaget Polaris www.bokforlagetpolaris.se Rights Politiken Literary Agency