Swedish Poetry 1
The Swedish Arts Council hosts the office for Swe
dish Literature Exchange, whose task is to strengthen international literature exchange. We offer grants for translation, events and travel, information about literature and we arrange seminars for publishers and translators. Twice a year we publish the brochure New Swedish Books, a selection of the best books in Sweden at the moment. Poetry is not often mentioned when it comes to Swedish literature in an international context. However – Swedish poetry has, in fact, a long tradition of traveling around the world, just as crime fiction has been doing during the past decade. When Tomas Tranströmer received the Nobel prize in 2011 he was already widely known. His poems had been translated into a number of languages and he had visited many literature festivals. A number of Swedish poets have been visiting the international poetry festivals regularly and new Swedish poems are being translated and read by a new audience. In this publication you will find a subjective retrospective overview of Swedish poetry during the 20th century as well as presentations of a wide selection of contemporary poets. Many of the famous poets who made a huge impact on Swedish literature in the 1900s were Finland-Swedish and originally published in Finland. Unfortunately, since our task is to cover only literature originally published in Sweden, we have had to leave the Finland-Swedish authors, such as Claes Andersson, Gunnar Björling, Bo Carpelan, Elmer Diktonius, Rabbe Enckell, Tua Forsström, Edith Södergran, Märta Tikkanen and others out of this selection. Björn Kohlström, a critic and teacher with a personal interest in poetry, has made the selection of poets and written the presentations. The essay on Swedish contemporary poetry is written by Johannes Göransson, translator, publisher and assistant professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. At the back you will find the contact details for the publishers and rights holders as well as information about all our international literature grants for translation, projects, events and travel. More information about the Swedish Arts Council’s work with international literature exchange can be found online, along with the editions of New Swedish Books at www.swedishliterature.se. Susanne Bergström Larsson, Project Manager for Swedish Literature Exchange, Swedish Arts Council Introduction