Translator's Choice 2020 1
9 Translator’s choice Why does this book deserve
to be translated? In 2021 it is the 140th jubilee of the birth of Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. Bartók made his career as a worldfamous composer and came to play a significant role in the development of modern music. However, he was also an outspoken opponent of Nazism during the ideological struggles in 1930s Europe; an opposition to which he remained committed up until his death in 1945, exiled in New York. Kjell Espmark’s writing tells the story of how Bartók fought against Nazism – a struggle that is worth remembering today, as countries across Europe close their borders and where anti-Semitic and anti-democratic views are once again finding increasingly larger audiences. Bartók’s discovery and use of folk music in his work challenged and rebelled against German music’s hegemony. Bartók was an anti-nationalist, as contemporary classical composer György Ligeti has also pointed out. Kjell Espmark brilliantly captures a dramatic moment on Béla Bartók’s event horizon, where everything appears possible but still predestined, as is so often the case when you look back on great artists’ lives. In this essay/poetic novel by Espmark Bartók appears as the archetype of the free artist – and as things look today we will need many more of those. “Kjell Espmark brilliantly captures a dramatic moment” László Sall László Sall translates into Hungarian and lives in Gothenburg, Sweden. Another favourite amongst books he has previously translated is: Athena Farrokhzad Vitsvit, poetry, 2013 Fehérfehérré, Holnap Kulturális Egyesület, 2017 Swedish publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2013 Rights: Athena Farrokhzad