Kestin Ekman’s wonderful poem Childhood, now published by Norvik Press as a dual language English/Swedish publication. Translated from Swedish by Rochelle Wright.
Kerstin Ekman is primarily known as a novelist, but she has occasionally turned to free verse, especially when the subject is autobiographical. In 1993-1994, Swedish TV 1 conducted a series of talks with prominent writers under the rubric ‘Seven Boys and Seven Girls’. In place of an ordinary interview, Kerstin Ekman read aloud Barndom (Childhood). The poem, which was published for the first time in Swedish Book Review in 1995, appears here with original photographs kindly provided by the author. The prose passages are quotations from Ekman’s 1988 novel Rövarna i Skuleskogen (The Forest of Hours, transl. Anna Paterson, Chatto & Windus, 1998).
Childhood has a new foreword by Kerstin Ekman, translated by Linda Schenck. The volume also includes a bibliography of critical literature (largely in English) on the author and her work, plus a full list of Ekman titles available in English translation.
This publication was the initiative of Norvik Press director Helena Forsås-Scott, who sadly lost her life to leukemia before the project came to fruition. The book is dedicated to her. Norvik Press will donate the first year’s profit on sales of the publication to the Marie Curie charity in the UK in memory of Helena, who was cared for at the Marie Curie Hospice in Edinburgh in her final days.
Norvik Press is looking forward to the forthcoming publication of our translation of Selma Lagerlöf’s Mårbacka. Here is a little about the background to Mårbacka and a preview of a chapter from the book.
Mårbacka in Autumn, photo by Jensens.
The property of Mårbacka in the Swedish province of Värmland went through several incarnations. It was a fairly modest farmhouse when Selma Lagerlöf was growing up there, becoming immersed at her grandmother’s knee in the storytelling that was to be such a central aspect of her own life. Financial difficulties led to the family’s loss of the house, but Lagerlöf, by then an established writer, was later able to buy it back, rebuild it and make it the centre of her world.
Today, the house and gardens at Mårbacka are open to the public in the summer months and attract visitors from all over the world. In the Mårbacka shop they can purchase translations of her work, including titles from the Norvik Press ‘Lagerlöf in English’ series.
Details of all Norvik’s Lagerlöf titles can be found here > Read about today’s Mårbacka >
Selma Lagerlöf in her study in the main house at Mårbacka.
The book Mårbacka, the first part of a trilogy written in 1922-32, can be read as many different things: memoir, fictionalised autobiography, even as part of Selma Lagerlöf’s myth-making about her own successful career as an author. Soon to be available from Norvik Press in my new translation, it is part family history, part ethnography and folklore, part mischievous satire in the guise of innocent, child’s-eye narration, part declaration of filial love. Above all it is a testimony to the love that the place and its stories and people inspired in Lagerlöf and her nearest and dearest. Its power of attraction can clearly be seen in the taster chapter below, a draft extract from the section at the very heart of the book, ‘Old Buildings and Old People’.
In this season of Nobel Prizes, Norvik Press gratefuly acknowledges funding from the Swedish Academy for the translation of Mårbacka and several of our other Lagerlöf titles. The author herself won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1909. We also thank the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation and the Barbro Osher Foundation for recent grants to the Lagerlöf project.
Sarah Death
————–
THE RAISED STOREHOUSE
All the old folk on the farm declared with one voice that the building next in age after the stone huts was the old raised storehouse. But it was not built there by the first permanent resident; it had surely come into existence some hundred years after his time, when Mårbacka was turned into a proper farm.
The farmers living there then had presumably put up a raised storehouse as soon as they could, because it was expected that a farm of any importance would have one.
At any rate, it was an extremely modest example of its kind. It was supported on low posts with no form of decoration. The door was low, so you had to stoop to enter. But the lock and key were all the bigger by comparison. They would not have been out of place in a prison.
The storehouse had no windows, only some little openings with shutters. In summer, when they wanted the windows open, they used screens of twigs to keep out the flies. They wove the thin twigs into a lattice, until they had a square big enough to fill the window. Not much light found its way through the gaps, but at least it was not completely dark.
The storehouse had two storeys, and the upper one was much better appointed than the lower. That must have been where the farmers kept their most treasured possessions once upon a time.
It was likely that the storehouse was just the same in Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s time as it had been originally. It might have had a new roof, but other than that it had been left in peace. The staircase was not replaced, even though the steps were so narrow that you could scarcely get your foot on them, and the window openings remained unglazed.
The place looked magnificent in autumn. On the lower floor there were big bins full of freshly milled flour. Beside them stood two vats, full to the brim with pieces of meat and bacon in brine. Alongside these were ranged tubs and buckets of different types of sausage – pork, beef and potato – made after that autumn’s slaughter. Tucked in the corner were a barrel of herring, a cask of salted laveret, another of vendace and usually a firkin of salmon, too; in addition to this there would be pots of salted beans and salted spinach and firkins of yellow and green peas.
On the upper floor stood great tubs of butter, which had been filled over the summer and were to be saved for the winter. Cheeses were ranged in long rows on shelves above the window openings and aged smoked hams hung from the ceiling. The homegrown hops were kept in a sack as big as a bolster, and malted grain in another. A whole year’s supplies were assembled there.
In the food store it was the housekeeper who ruled the roost. The food store was hers, and its key was seldom entrusted to anyone else. Miss Lovisa Lagerlöf might be allowed to preside over the pantry and the milk store, but the housekeeper preferred to go to the storehouse herself.
It was she who reigned over all the proper cooking, too. Making jams and cordials and baking biscuits could be left under Miss Lovisa’s supervision, but if there was a joint to be roasted or cheese to be made or crispbread to be baked, then it was the old housekeeper who would take the lead.
The little ones at Mårbacka had a huge amount of love and unlimited respect for her. In fact it was quite possible that they considered her the person of the highest standing on the whole farm.
After all, the children could observe that whenever relatives came to visit, they would immediately go out into the kitchen to say hello to the housekeeper, and whenever anything of note happened in the family, Lieutenant Lagerlöf would call her in and tell her about it, and when Daniel and Johan were going back to school each new year and autumn, they were always told to go and bid the housekeeper goodbye.
The children also heard strangers say that Mrs Lagerlöf was very fortunate to have such a faithful servant in her kitchen. Nothing in her charge was ever overlooked or neglected.
Nowhere, moreover, was there such Christmas beer, such crispbread and such good cooking to be had as at Mårbacka, and everyone agreed that this was all thanks to the old housekeeper.
So it was no surprise that the children considered her the mainstay of everything. They firmly believed that without the housekeeper, everything would go wrong at Mårbacka.
But one day, little Anna Lagerlöf discovered a secret she found really alarming. She could not bear it alone, but had to tell her sister Selma that she had overheard two of the maids talking as if the housekeeper were married and had a husband.
There is no describing how much this troubled the two little girls. For if the housekeeper was married and had a husband, they could not be at all sure of keeping her at Mårbacka, could they?
How would it be for their mother, who relied so much on her excellent help? And how would it be for them, accustomed as they were to her giving them some tasty little treat each time they went into the kitchen? And how would it be for the whole farm?
It was vital that they find out the truth of the matter. They agreed to ask Nanny Maja, the new nurserymaid, if the housekeeper could possibly be married.
Well, Nanny Maja knew the whole story. She had heard it from her mother, who had been in service at Mårbacka at the very time it all happened.
It was the honest truth, though until then the children had never heard a word about the housekeeper’s marriage. And her husband was alive and living in Karlstad, where he was a carpenter. So he was not even conveniently dead.
And this was supposedly how it came about: when the lieutenant and his brother went off to school in Karlstad, old Mrs Lagerlöf sent with them her faithful housekeeper Maja Persdotter, to take care of the boys and cook their meals. There in the town she made the acquaintance of a carpenter, who proposed to her.
And Nanny Maja’s mother said that the spring the housekeeper came home and told her mistress she was getting married, the old lady was downcast and fearful, for she realised she would be losing her greatest treasure. ‘And what sort of husband are you to marry, Maja?’ she enquired. ‘Do you know him to be a good man?’
Oh yes, she had assured herself of that. He was a master carpenter with his own workshop and his own house. He had put his home in order so that they could marry at once, and he would make the best of husbands.
‘But how can you possibly feel at home there, in the barren streets of a town,’ said old Mrs Lagerlöf, ‘as someone who has spent her whole life in the countryside?’
Oh, that did not worry her either. Things would be so good for her from now on. She would be able to live such an easy life and would not have to bake or brew but could simply go to the market and buy everything she needed at home for the housekeeping.
When old Mrs Lagerlöf heard her talking like that she realised the housekeeper had been seized by the urge to get married and there was nothing to do but prepare for the wedding. And the wedding was held at Mårbacka, the bridegroom came and appeared to be a wise and able fellow, and the day after the wedding he travelled to Karlstad with his bride.
But a fortnight later, or perhaps it was scarcely even that long, Mrs Lagerlöf took up the key to the food store to go out and carve some ham for the evening meal. And she never took up that storehouse key without thinking of Maja Persdotter and wondering how she was getting on. ‘If only I had not sent her to Karlstad, then she would not have met the carpenter,’ she thought, ‘and I would still have my excellent assistant and would not need to run to the food store twenty times a day, as I have to now.’
Just as she was about to enter the storehouse, she happened to glance towards the avenue and the road, for there was an unobstructed view in those days. And she was rooted to the spot, for who should be approaching beneath the birches but someone so like Maja Persdotter, her faithful helpmeet and servant ever since her young days, that the storehouse key fell from her hand.
The nearer the stranger came, the more her doubt faded. And when the woman stopped in front of her and said ‘Good evening, ma’am,’ she could not but believe her own eyes.
‘Why, it’s you, Maja Persdotter!’ she said. ‘Whatever are you doing here? Have you not got a fine husband?’
‘He does nothing but drink,’ replied the housekeeper. ‘He’s been drunk every day since we got married. He drinks the pure alcohol he uses for his work. Such a ne’er-do-well is too much to bear.’
‘But I imagined you would have nothing to do but go to the market and buy everything you needed and be spared all that work?’ said Mrs Lagerlöf.
‘Honoured mistress, I promise to coddle and care for you, if only you’ll let me return home again,’ said the housekeeper. ‘I’ve been longing to come back to Mårbacka day and night.’
‘Come in then, so we can talk to your master about this,’ said the old lady, and she was so happy by this point that there were tears in her eyes. ‘And by the grace of God we shall never again be parted in this life,’ she added.
And so it proved. The housekeeper stayed at Mårbacka. Her husband must have realised that it was not worth trying to coax her back. He never came to get her, but let her stay where she was. She removed her wedding ring from her finger and put it in her clothes chest, and the matter was never spoken of again.
Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s young daughters should have been reassured once they heard all this, but they remained anxious for a long time afterwards. After all, with the carpenter still being alive, what was to stop him turning up one day to order his wife back? And whenever they found themselves by the storehouse where they had an unobstructed view up to the road, they always expected to see him coming. Nanny Maja had told them that if he came and demanded his wife back, she would have to go with him.
They did not really know how old the housekeeper was. She had forgotten what year she was born and the date recorded in the church registers was said to be wrong. Now she was over seventy, but the carpenter might want her back with him even so, outstanding woman that she was.
Helena Forsås-Scott. Image Credit :www.dels.nu/de-litterara-sallskapen-pa-bokmassan
Norvik Press is deeply saddened to hear the news of the death, after a short illness, of Professor Helena Forsås-Scott, one of our Directors and founder and Editor of our translation series Lagerlöf in English. Helena joined UCL in 1994 and retired in 2010 as Professor of Swedish and Gender Studies. Helena was a pioneering force in Gender Studies at UCL and a much-loved colleague, supervisor, mentor and teacher in the Department of Scandinavian Studies. Her major publications include Re-Writing the Script: Gender and Community in Elin Wägner (2009), Gender-Power-Text: Gender and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Scandinavia (2004), Swedish Women’s Writing 1850-1995 (1997) and A Century of Swedish Narrative: Essays in Honour of Karin Petherick (1994).
“a distinguished novel by one of Denmark’s foremost writers … compellingly readable” Paul Binding, Times Literary Supplement
Norvik Press is looking forward to hearing Helen Cross discuss The God of Chance by Kirsten Thorup on BBC Radio4’s program A Good Read on July 16 at 4.30pm.
The God of Chance focuses on the relationship between Ana, a high-flying Danish career woman from the international finance sector whose work is her life, and the young teenager Mariama, two women whose circumstances are completely different. Ana first meets Mariama selling snacks on a beach in Gambia, and the girl gradually becomes a substitute for the family she has never had. The novel moves to Copenhagen and then to London as Ana brings Mariama to Europe to be educated; the girl finds the cultural shock and living with Ana intensely difficult, whilst Ana’s obsession with her leads to her own carefully controlled life descending into chaos.
Translated by Janet Garton for Norvik Press in 2014, The God of Chance was originally published in Danish in 2011 and is the latest by the prize-winning Danish author Kirsten Thorup. She is well known for her series of four novels about little Jonna from the provinces, which are also about growing up into the rapidly-changing Danish society of the late twentieth century; and Bonsai (2000), an unflinching account of the scourge of Aids and its devastating effect on an ordinary family.
If you would like to purchase a copy it is available in all good bookstores.
Join us in Soho on Tuesday May 5th, 6-7.30pm, for the launch of Klaus Rifbjerg’s Terminal Innocence. Featuring translator Paul Larkin and Dr Mikkel Bruun Zangenberg, Danish literary critic and Lecturer at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Paul and Mikkel will be in conversation, telling us all about Rifbjerg’s role in twentieth-century Danish literature, and discussing the perils and pleasures of translating a novel that has been described as the Danish Catcher in the Rye. Light refreshments and light entertainment from the 1940s supplied.
This event is free, but places are limited, so please RSVP by Thursday 30 April to norvikevents@gmail.com. The venue is the ArtFix Space, 27 Peter Street. London W1F 0AJ (ArtFix’s website is here: http://www.artfixlondon.com/)
On Easter Sunday, Denmark awoke to the news that one of its most prolific, influential, and best-loved writers had passed away after a long illness. Klaus Rifbjerg (born 1931) debuted as a poet in 1956, and authored some 175 works: novels, plays, collections of poetry and short stories, screenplays and many other genres. He was particularly influential as a pioneer of modernism in Danish poetry. His first novel, Den kroniske uskyld (1958), is still recognised as one of his masterpieces.
Den kroniske uskyld is narrated by Janus Tolne, a Copenhagen schoolboy whose life is enlivened by the arrival of a new friend, Tore Riemer. Through Janus’ eyes, we catch glimpses of life under the German occupation of Denmark (1940-45), but his main preoccupation is his beloved Tore and, by extension, Tore’s girlfriend Helle. Locked in a chaste ménage à trois with this glamorous couple, Janus navigates his way through the waters of teenage firsts: girls, drinking, graduating from high school. As readers, we live this perplexing and, at times mortifying process of transformation along with Janus. But we know, too, perhaps before Janus does, that Tore and Helle are caught in some strange stasis, trapped in a web spun by Helle’s monstrous mother. As the title of the novel suggests, their innocence seems to be a chronic and terminal condition.
With his translation, entitled Terminal Innocence, Irish translator and author Paul Larkin has captured the playfulness of Rifbjerg’s language in this novel, as well as his ability to capture the joy of the everyday and generate fresh perspectives on existence. Den kroniske uskyld has been translated into eight languages, including French, German, Polish and Czech, but it has not been available in English until now – perhaps because of the challenges posed for the translator by the fresh, rebellious, exuberant voice of Rifbjerg’s narrator.
While Rifbjerg did not live to see his debut novel published in English, Paul Larkin discussed the translation with him in person. Paul’s account of their meetings is available in his essay ‘The Day I Met Klaus Rifbjerg’ (links to academia.edu – login may be required).
Norvik Press is pleased to invite you to the launch of the podcast
‘The Contract Killer’ by Benny Andersen, Translated by Paul Garrett Russell (Norvik Press, 2013).
Benny Andersen’s Play “The Contract Killer”
Translated by Paul Russell Garrett Performed and Produced by [Foreign Affairs]
12/03/2015
6.30 – 8.00 pm
doors open at 6:15 pm
The launch includes a panel discussion with Translator Paul Russell Garrett and [Foreign Affairs] Director Camila França
[Foreign Affairs] will perform a short excerpt from the play
Wilkins Garden Room
Bernard Katz Building
UCL
London WC1E 6DE
Enter via Gower Street main entrance
Refreshments will be served
This event is free but places are limited
Please RSVP by 10/03/15
to norvikevents@gmail.com
Paul Russell GarrettCamila Franca
About The Contract Killer by Benny Andersen: Karlsen is a down-on-his-luck private investigator looking for work. When the only job on offer is a contract killing, Karlsen agrees despite his lack of experience. Things don’t go to plan and it seems the contract is open to negotiation. The play follows the twists and turns of an inexperienced contract killer with a weakness for turquoise dresses and wide-eyed women. This absurdist comedy by one of Denmark’s best-loved writers sees the fates of the eponymous contract killer, his target, the employer and his wife, twist, turn and hang in the balance. What is a life worth? Who will survive? And will the hair dye ever make it to Pakistan?
Available at all good bookstores.
About [Foreign Affairs]:
[Foreign Affairs] is an international theatre company based in London, UK. Formed in 2010 by Camila França and Trine Garrett,both professional actresses themselves, now adding director and producer to their well-established resumes. As their motto states; “[Foreign Affairs] was conceived with a simple idea: to cultivate a creative environment in which artists from all walks of life can come together to explore, work with and develop new, interesting and unusual ideas to showcase to the world”.
Helena Forsås-Scott will discuss Selma Lagerlöf’s Nils Holgersson’s wonderful Journey through Sweden (Norvik Press 2012 and 2014) at a panel discussion event at University College London.
On 23rd February the Department of Scandinavian Studies at UCL is hosting a panel discussion on Nordic children’s and young adult’s literature. What does writing for a young audience entail? Is writing for children any different from writing for adults? Do children’s classics age? How does modern technology affect the writing and reading processes? What is the relationship between entertainment and education? These are only some of the questions that the panellists will address from their perspective.
The panel will consist of prominent authors and scholars:
Maria Parr
• Norwegian author Maria Parr, author of Vaffelhjarte, recently translated into English by Dr Guy Puzey (Waffle Hearts, published by Walker Books in 2014), and Tonje Glimmerdal (2009).
Harald Rosenløw Eeg
• Norwegian author and script writer Harald Rosenløw Eeg. His works include the novels Glasskår (1995, Shards of Glass), Yatzy (2004, made into a film in 2009) and Den hvite døden (2013, The White Death) and the film script for Tusen ganger god natt (2013, A Thousand Times Good Night), directed by Erik Poppe.
Merete Pryds Helle
• Danish author Merete Pryds Helle, author of a number of novels and short stories for adult and young audiences. She has recently completed her first interactive children’s story for iPads, Wuwu & Co.
Professor Helena Forsås-Scott
• Professor Helena Forsås-Scott, editor of the Norvik Press “Selma Lagerlöf in English” series, which provides English-language readers with high-quality new translations of a selection of the Nobel Laureate’s most important texts. Prof Forsås-Scott will focus particularly on Nils Holgersson’s Wonderful Journey through Sweden (translated by Peter Graves and published by Norvik Press in 2012, reissued in hardback in 2014).
Dr Erin Goeres
• Dr Erin Goeres, Lecturer in Old Norse Language and Literature, co-editor of the book Viking Age Dublin: Walking Tour and Activity Book (published by Centre for the Study of the Viking Age, University of Nottingham, 2014), presenting Viking heritage to children.
The event will take place in the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, Wilkins Building, UCL. Doors will be opening at 6.15pm and the discussion will start at 6.30pm.
The panel discussion will be followed by a reception in the Garden Room, Wilkins Building, UCL, and included in the entrance fee of £5.00 are a drink and light refreshments.
To book your ticket please use the following link to the Eventbrite page.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact Dr Elettra Carbone.
Norvik Press congratulates managing editor Professor Helena Forsås-Scott on the recognition of her work by the Swedish Academy.
Helena Forsås-Scott
The prize, which is awarded as part of the Swedish Academy’s annual Belöningar ur Akademiens egna medel [Awards from the Academy’s Own Funds], is given to six people annually and is worth SEK 60,000. In her academic roles at University College London and The University of Edinburgh , as well as in her editorship at Norvik Press and various other publications, Helena has played a major role in celebrating and promoting Swedish literature in the UK.
Helena is currently editor of the Norvik Press “Selma Lagerlöf in English” series, which provides English-language readers with high-quality new translations of a selection of the Nobel Laureate’s most important texts and in 2014 Norvik Press published the second edition of Forsås-Scott’s book Re-Writing The Script: Gender and Community in Elin Wägner.
Norvik Press would like to extend to Helena its warmest congratulations. You can read the Swedish Academy’s announcement of the award here (in Swedish):
Kestin Ekman’s wonderful poem Childhood, now published by Norvik Press as a dual language English/Swedish publication. Translated from Swedish by Rochelle Wright.
