Out of the Darkness: Translators and Editors Shine Light on a New Treasure Trove of Swedish Literature

Event date:
Sunday, May 31
Event time:
2:45pm-3:45pm
Location:
Hotel Shattuck Plaza, Crystal Ballroom
Audiences:
Sponsors:
Booksales:
Sausalito Books by the Bay, in the outdoor courtyard area of the hotel
Access:
FREE

Out of the Darkness is an exciting new anthology of classic Swedish literature which brings many stories to an English-reading audience for the very first time. Vendela Vida and David Katznelson, co-editors of the collection, and translators Victoria Häggblom and Amanda Doxtater will discuss the selection and translation process and highlight the work of these authors in particular: Hjalmar Söderberg, Karin Boye, Agnes von Krusenstjerna, August Strindberg and Selma Lagerlöf. The editors will elaborate on these writers’ relevance to Swedish culture and to literature today, and the translators will focus on the joys and challenges of translating work from another era. The discussion will be moderated by Linda Haverty Rugg, professor of Scandinavian Studies at UC Berkeley.

Moderators:

Dan Alter

Dan Alter’s poems, reviews and translations have been published in journals including Field, Fourteen Hills, and Zyzzyva; his first collection My Little Book of Exiles won the 2022 Cowan Poetry Prize. A volume of translations Take a Breath, You’re Getting Excited, from the Hebrew of Yakir Ben-Moshe, was published by Ben Yehuda Press in September 2024, and Hills Full of Holes, a second collection of poems, by Fernwood Press in March 2025. He lives with his wife and daughter in Berkeley. He works at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley.

2025 Writers’ Workshops

Speaker A Compass in the Wilderness: Poetry in the Age of Environmental Crisis