New Swedish Books, autumn 2019 1
11 Autumn 2019 TRANSLATOR'S CHOICE Frank Perry Wh
at books from contemporary literature deserve to be re-discovered? We ask three translators to name books particularly close to their hearts. If I have a favourite among all the works I have translated then currently it would be Caterina Pascual Söderbaum's The Oblique Place because it is the most beautiful, the most challenging and perhaps above all the bravest novel I have read. Challenging not only because this is an artistically daring imaginative journey through the horrors of midtwentieth century Europe that also explores landscapes of recollection and the self with great subtlety but also because the novel cries out to be read with your full attention. Beautiful because despite those horrors and the grief and despair of this voyage of discovery Söderbaum’s prose shimmers on the page while also serving as a luminous testimony to hope. Set aside the heroism of the author spending the last seven years of her life creating her masterpiece while struggling with the malignancy that would eventually kill her and The Oblique Place is brave because Söderbaum insists on writing in her own utterly unique voice. I urge you to read this book. Caterina Pascual Söderbaum (1962–2015) The Oblique Place, novel, 2016, 425 p. Publisher Albert Bonniers Förlag Rights Bonnier Rights English edition Maclehose Press, 2018 Frank Perry Translates from Swedish to English, lives in London, England Photo: Anna Hedelius