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Reading recommendations for International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month

Logo for International Women’s Day (IWD) 2023.

The month of March marks both International Women’s Day, on 8 March, and Women’s History Month. In honour of these occasions, this blog profiles our pioneering women writers. We are very proud to have played a part in facilitating access to their work for English-speaking readers – frequently through women translators, and with cover designs by women – and can think of nothing better than inviting them all to a literary dinner party!


Fredrika Bremer (1801–1865) would be the ideal dinner party guest, as she would be very well-placed to supervise all the cooking! We recently re-issued The Colonel’s Family, originally published in two parts (or should that be ‘courses?!’) in 1830–31 and translated by Sarah Death. The novel, which is narrated by a no-nonsense cook-housekeeper with a warm heart and an eye for human weaknesses, now comes to you with an utterly delicious new cover. Pudding, anyone?


Camilla Collett (1813–1895) is a pioneer in Norwegian literature. Translated by Kirsten Seaver, her novel The District Governor’s Daughters portrays a bourgeois society in which marriage is a woman’s only salvation, and follows sympathetically the struggles of one intelligent young woman to break out of this mould.


Amalie Skram (1846–1905) is not for the faint-hearted. Her oeuvre includes Betrayed, Fru Inés, and Lucie, as well as her correspondence: Skram had access to the leading figures of the time, from radical writers and critics to politicians, so there’s plenty to whet one’s appetite!


Victoria Benedictsson (1850–1888) would be an esteemed guest at the party. Her first novel, Money, was published in 1885. Set in rural southern Sweden where the author lived, it follows the fortunes of Selma Berg, a girl whose fate has much in common with that of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Ibsen’s Nora. The seating plan would need to allow for everyone wanting to converse with Benedictsson about the radical literary movement of the 1880s known as Scandinavia’s Modern Breakthrough.


Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940): definitely a seat at the head of the table for her! Reading Lagerlöf is life-changing. A good place to start is with our Lagerlöf in English series. You can thank us later!


Elin Wägner (1892–1949): feminist, suffragist, pacifist and environmentalist, Wägner was the author of a prodigious amount of journalism, political pamphlets and prose fiction as well as an acclaimed biography of Selma Lagerlöf (see above!). The edited volume Re-Writing the Script: Gender and Community in Elin Wägner shows how Wägner’s texts outlined bold alternatives to the Swedish welfare state, and how her combined focus on gender and environmentalism anticipated much more recent ecocritical works. The title of her novel Penwoman, about the Swedish women’s suffrage movement, speaks for itself and applies to all the other guests at this soirée.


Hagar Olsson (1893–1978) and Karin Boye (1900–1941) would absolutely be seated together, and we would recommend reading them together, too: Chitambo and Crisis are the perfect modernist pairing.


Kerstin Ekman (b. 1933) provides a literary smörgåsbord to choose from. She is the author of Childhood, and of our recently reissued Women and the City tetralogy. Begin with Witches’ Rings: the central character is a woman so anonymous that her name is not even mentioned on her gravestone. You can read excerpts from Ekman’s other work published in translation by our friends over at Swedish Book Review.


Dorrit Willumsen (b. 1940), author of the novel Bangcame to visit us here at Norvik Press for a chat with her translator, Marina Allemano, about their shared fascination in the (endlessly fascinating!) life of Herman Bang. Bang is welcome to join the party too: he will make a most excellent speaker in the after-dinner slot.


Kirsten Thorup (b. 1942) is unafraid to tackle meaty topics in her work. In The God of Chance, translated by Janet Garton, she unflinchingly explores the problematic relationship between sponsor or donor and recipient. Scenes move from colourful depictions of life in a luxury hotel in Africa, cheek by jowl with desperate poverty, to elite designer flats in Copenhagen, and finally the bustling multicultural community on the streets of London.


Suzanne Brøgger (b. 1944) surely takes the prize for best title with her prose collection, A Fighting Pig’s Too Tough to Eat. Brøgger’s writings transgress genre and have often prompted comparison with her fellow countrywoman, Karen Blixen. This collection traces her development from social rebel to iconoclast and visionary.


Vigdis Hjorth (b. 1959) is an eminent guest. A House in Norway tells the story of Alma, a divorced textile artist who makes a living from weaving standards for trade unions and marching bands. When a Polish family moves into her apartment, their activities challenge her unconscious assumptions and her self-image as a “good feminist”. Is it possible to reconcile the desire to be tolerant and altruistic with the imperative need for creative and personal space?

Happy Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day!

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The Lagerlöf in English series – updates

In June 2011, Norvik Press published Lord Arne’s Silver, The Phantom Carriage and The Löwensköld Ring, three short novels by the world-renowned author Selma Lagerlöf. It was the start of an exciting and, for us, very gratifying project – the Lagerlöf in English Series – which has turned into twelve books so far. The translations are done by Linda Schenck, Peter Graves and Sarah Death, all experienced and prize-winning translators from Swedish to English. In addition to the substantial job of translating a Nobel Prize winner, Schenck, Graves and Death have also contributed with their own translators’ afterwords in their respective translations. These chapters make for an intriguing read about different aspects of translating each particular book and give in-depth information about Lagerlöf’s work. Furthermore, each book is introduced by an exciting and informative preface written by the late Helena Forsås-Scott, the pioneering mind behind the series.

The series now comprises 13 titles, most recently Memoirs of a Child (volume II of the Mårbacka trilogy), published in 2022.

You can read more about all of the titles in our Series brochure.

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A child’s Christmas in Sweden

Glögg, or mulled wine, is a warm beverage best enjoyed during the cold weeks leading up to Christmas. It tastes even better if you drink it with gingerbread snaps. Credit: Emelie Asplund/imagebank.sweden.se

‘I can well understand that Maria was obliged to send you packing Alfred, today of all days,’ says Mama. ‘A madcap like you is the last person one wants around when Christmas preparations are in full swing.’ 

It’s approaching that time of year again: of ginger snaps and glögg by the fire, and some cosy Christmassy reading! The above quote is a little snippet of our gift to you: an exclusive seasonal extract from the newest addition to our Lagerlöf in English series, Memoirs of a Child.

Memoirs of a Child continues the story of Selma Lagerlöf’s childhood that was begun in Mårbacka, and its scenes of Värmland county and preparations for winter festivities are the perfect accompaniment this winter. Open up our extract below:

Memoirs of a Child – extract from Pastor Unger

If you would like to immerse yourself in the full experience, you can order Memoirs of a Child here, or from your favourite local bookshop.

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Memoirs of a Child – coming soon!

Cover of Memoirs of a Child, the newest addition to the Lagerlöf in English series

We are delighted to announce a forthcoming addition to our Lagerlöf in English series: Memoirs of a Child.

Memoirs of a Child is the second part of a (notionally!) autobiographical trilogy by Selma Lagerlöf. Continuing on from the personal creation myth begun in Mårbacka, Lagerlöf here broadens the perspective from the farm where she grew up to include the people and places around Lake Fryken in her beloved Värmland county and a focus on the self-discipline and imagination needed to fulfil a childhood ambition to become an author. Pursuing this ambition is hard work that sometimes means taking a stand against convention. It is also a deeply enriching process in a home steeped in storytelling and books. The mature author reveals the roots of the young bibliophile’s growing skill in deploying fiction to manipulate and embellish reality, producing a wryly charming, tongue-in-cheek account – one that we should beware of taking at face value…!

We hope to publish this sequel by the end of November 2022, in good time for Lagerlöf fans to curl up with it by a cosy fire, or to gift it for Christmas.

If you would like to remind yourself of Mårbacka beforehand, you can listen to a reading of it linked from this Tweet (very in keeping with the storytelling theme); and you can order your copy of it here, or from your favourite bookshop.

And because we always like to treat our readers: here is an exclusive extract from Memoirs of a Child, pre-publication:

Memoirs of a Child – Extract

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A summer of Lagerlöf – highlights

For those who couldn’t join the Anglo-Swedish Society’s literary salon celebrating the superb Selma last week, all the readings and discussion were recorded and are now available to enjoy here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anglo-swedish+society

You can also read through our live-tweeting from the event on our Twitter feed here: https://twitter.com/norvikpress (posts dated 4 August). If you are now looking to fill a Lagerlöf-shaped hole in your life, we would suggest Lord Arne’s Silver, translated by Sarah Death. This novella makes a lasting impression on its readers and is best read in company and full sunlight. An economical and haunting tale of robbery and retribution, it can be inhaled in a single, nerve-shredding sitting but remains in the mind for a long time afterwards.

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A summer of Lagerlöf – continued

We have some more pre-reading for you this week, ahead of the Anglo-Swedish Society’s Selma Lagerlöf – A Wonderful Adventure event and Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth).

Part of our Lagerlöf in English series and translated by Linda Schenck, Banished examines what happens to an individual rejected by society, and what happens to a society that realises – too late – that the living are more important than the dead, and that it is suffering a crisis of values and priorities. What does war do to us and to our outlook on the world?

Lagerlöf struggled with these issues throughout World War I and experienced a mental block in writing about them. Then she found an opening and produced a thought-provoking tale of love, death and survival that grapples with moral dilemmas as relevant today as they were a century ago.

An extract of Banished is available to read here, which covers some unexpected guests – thought-provoking preparatory reading if you are Zooming in to the Anglo-Swedish Society’s salon next week, and eerily resonant of these times of post-travel quarantine.

If this has made you curious to add the complete book to your summer reading tower, you can order it at all good bookstores.

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A summer of Lagerlöf

Ahead of the Anglo-Swedish Society’s event celebrating Selma Lagerlöf – A Wonderful Adventure and Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth) in August, we are highlighting our library of Lagerlöf in English.

Anna Svärd is Lagerlöf’s last work of fiction and the final volume in her Löwensköld Trilogy. First published in Swedish in 1928 and translated for Norvik Press by Linda Schenck, it completes the family cycle of the preceding two volumes, The Löwensköld Ring and Charlotte Löwensköld, and combines a compelling account of women’s struggle towards agency with a chilling – and unexpected – denouement.

They laughed loud and long, each one louder than the
next, though at the same time they were embarrassed. It was,
of course, not proper to laugh when the head of the family
and household had been duped. They were decent, well-bred
women and they definitely disapproved of themselves. But
their laughter quite simply came from natural human depths,
and could not be restrained without risk of suffocation.

We have made an extract from Anna Svärd newly available here. This scene is a joy for all: it recounts a practical joke which is particularly fitting for #WITMonth, and may raise a smile in these challenging times. It will also be particularly useful pre-reading for those planning to join the Anglo-Swedish Society’s readings of Lagerlöf’s work later this summer, for which you can order copies of all the texts in our Lagerlöf in English series from your friendly local bookshop.

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Lagerlöf and public health education

This week we’re highlighting two translations from our Lagerlöf in English series: Nils Holgersson’s Wonderful Journey through Sweden (1906-07), available here; and The Phantom Carriage (1912), available here, both translated by Peter Graves.

This blogpost is adapted from a longer essay by one of our directors, Claire Thomson. If you read Swedish, you can download it for free here.

As we begin to understand Covid-19, this dreadful new disease afflicting humankind, there is some comfort to be found in the thought that within the last century, great leaps were made in the treatment and control of another scourge: tuberculosis. In Sweden alone, half a million people died of tuberculosis between 1900 and 1950. In 1904, the Swedish National Association Against Tuberculosis (Nationalföreningen mot Tuberkulos) was established to coordinate public health education about the disease. One of the association’s founders, alongside Crown Prince Gustav, was the author Selma Lagerlöf.

In its first few decades, a key activity for the Association was to organise peripatetic lectures and film and slide shows educating Swedes about hygiene and other preventative measures against tuberculosis. Money was raised for research and education through the sale of stamps and the majblomma flower pin. But a subtler means of raising awareness was Lagerlöf’s writing; she was encouraged by the Association to write the novella The Phantom Carriage (Körkarlen, 1912), a ghost story which lays bare the sickness, poverty and misery engendered by tuberculosis. The novella was adapted for the silver screen in 1920-21 by the great Swedish director and actor Victor Sjöström. A blockbuster of its day, it was one of the first films to use double exposure, and inspired the young Ingmar Bergman to take up filmmaking.

Feature films and literature can, of course, indirectly promote public health messages. But in the days before television and social media, purpose-made short films were widely used in public information campaigns. In 1952, twelve years after her death, Lagerlöf’s writing again played a role in educating the Swedish populace about the fight against tuberculosis. By this time, half a century of research had resulted in effective prevention and treatment, and Sweden had been one of the countries to pioneer a nation-wide screening and vaccination programme in the 1940s (including the use of miniature x-ray machines in buses). The dramatist Martin Söderhjelm was commissioned by the National Association Against Tuberculosis to make a short film reminding Swedes of the work of the Association, encouraging them to participate in medical screening programmes, and looking to the future. The sixteen-minute film, shown in cinemas around the country in autumn 1952, was Medan det ännu är tid: ‘While there’s still time’.

In order to engage its audience, Medan det ännu är tid opens with a tale that every Swedish cinema-goer would remember from their school days: an episode from Lagerlöf’s Nils Holgersson. Chapter XLIV of the epic novel fills in the back-story of two recurring characters, Åsa the goose-girl and her little brother Mats, and the film devotes its first five minutes to the sad fate of these fictional children. Åsa and Mats are from a poor Småland family. Their siblings and mother are infected by a traveller and die one by one, and their father flees. The orphaned Åsa and Mats attend a lecture explaining the symptoms, prevention and treatment of tuberculosis, and they realize that their family died of the disease, not of the sick traveller’s curse. Åsa and Mats embark on their own journey through Sweden to find their father, navigating forests, towns and frozen lakes (see below), and along the way they tell the people they encounter about the need for good hygiene in combating the spread of tuberculosis. The film thus stages the historical phenomenon of travelling public health lecturers, an authentic detail already embedded in the novel by an author who was herself a founding member of the National Association Against Tuberculosis. But in typical Lagerlöf style, public health education is also framed in Nils Holgersson as a kind of mythical or folktale-style wandering across the national map, undertaken by the good citizens Åsa and Mats.

Both in Lagerlöf’s novel and Söderhjelm’s film, the fight against tuberculosis thus emerges as a collective undertaking for Swedish society, a battle that is fought not only by scientists and medics, but by ordinary people doing simple, everyday things – like washing their hands.

* * *

For Peter Graves’ translation of Nils Holgersson’s Wonderful Journey through Sweden, Norvik Press commissioned original illustrations from the illustrator Bea Bonafini. Bea comments here on her illustration for chapter XXV, which depicts a dramatic episode in Åsa and Mats’ trek through Sweden:

Possibly my favourite image, I chose this tragic moment for its visual power, as well as for how poignantly Lagerlöf depicts the race for survival of the brother and sister. I imagined the aerial view of the running children, seen from the perspective of the gander and the boy as they direct the children out of the maze of cracking ice. The image evokes the precarious balance between life and death as the children try to avoid running into dead ends while making their way across. It is the first inverted image I use, where the picture of the iced lake fills a negative space, causing an initial sense of disorientation appropriate to the nature of the image.

‘The Ice Breaks Up’, illustration by Bea Bonafini for Nils Holgersson’s Wonderful Journey through Sweden
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Memories of Mårbacka

There are times over the past twelve weeks or so when our semi-isolated living situation has made us feel we’ve been transported back to an earlier age. Living in a rural area in particular, and seeing the busy – if socially distanced – local community interactions and the empty roads, you can almost feel as if you’re a resident of Mrs Gaskell’s Cranford. Or indeed of Selma Lagerlöf’s Mårbacka, where families struggle, to be sure, and life can be physically and mentally tough, but the pace of things is largely determined by the slowly changing seasons and the length of time it takes to get anywhere on foot, or in a horse and gig along the winding, hilly roads round the lakes of Värmland province.

In the lockdown months we’ve all come to appreciate the value of a full larder, and in that we have much in common with the housekeeper at Mårbacka farm, who prides herself on a full storehouse to keep the large household going. Read our evocative extract here.

Tina Stafrén/imagebank.sweden.se

Explore the world of Selma Lagerlöf not only in Mårbacka but through our whole series ‘Lagerlöf in English’, translated by Peter Graves, Linda Schenck and Sarah Death. This great Swedish storyteller brings you tales of everything from love in sickness and in health, via romance and betrayal, hauntings and untimely deaths, salty sea air and valiant derring-do, to family life with its fractious and funny moments and its small delights.

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Ten Lagerlöf masterpieces for £100

Women in Translation Month is almost over, but we couldn’t let it pass without celebrating the woman whose shadow looms large over our catalogue, and the women and men who have translated her work: Selma Lagerlöf.

For a limited time only, we’re offering ten Lagerlöf masterpieces for £100. Read on for more details…

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To date, Norvik Press has published ten of Lagerlöf’s works in English translation [click here to download the series leaflet]:

A Manor House Tale: a psychological novella and a folk tale in which two young and damaged people redeem each other.

Banished: infused with the visceral horrors of the First World War, Banished is a tale of love, loneliness, and the extremes of human morality. Read an extract here.

The Emperor of Portugallia: A compelling exploration of father-daughter relationships and of madness.

The Phantom Carriage: an atmospheric ghost story and a cautionary tale of the effects of tuberculosis and alcoholism, famously adapted to film by the great Swedish director Victor Sjöström.

Lord Arne’s Silver: from a 16th-century killing unfolds a tale of retribution, love and betrayal.

Mårbacka: part memoir, part mischievous satire set on Lagerlöf’s childhood estate. Read an extract from Mårbacka in English here.

The Löwensköld Trilogy: Lagerlöf’s last work of fiction, the trilogy follows several generations of a cursed family and explores destiny, evil, motherhood, and many other themes along the way. The trilogy consists of three volumes:  The Löwensköld Ring, Charlotte Löwensköld, and Anna Svärd.

The internationally beloved tale of a boy and his goose, Nils Holgersson’s Wonderful Journey through Sweden, Volume 1 and Volume 2 (Nils Holgersson is also available in a single-volume hardback collector’s edition).

Purchased individually, all eleven paperbacks (including the two paperback volumes of Nils Holgersson) cost a total of £135 (plus P&P). Until 14 September 2018, we are offering a limited number of complete sets of eleven paperbacks at the discounted price of £100 (plus P&P). This special price is only available on orders placed directly with Norvik Press, not through book stores or online. Please email norvik.press@ucl.ac.uk to place your order. First come, first served – available only while stocks last!

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