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Sweden

The covers of the six books featured in the Watchlist: The Murderer's Mother, Forgottenness, The...
The Watchlist: January 2024
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends six books to start off the new year, from a classic of Danish science fiction to Álvaro Enrigue’s reimagining of sixteenth-century Mexico.
The covers of Vengeance Is Mine, Under Our Skin, Negras, Rotten Evidence, MA, Owlish, The Love...
The Best Books We Read in 2023—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2024
By Words Without Borders
WWB staff members share their favorite translated books of the year and the titles they’re most looking forward to in 2024.
The covers of the books featured in the August Watchlist: The Details, Lojman, Wenling's, A Practical...
The Watchlist: August 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends new and exciting reads from Angola, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey.
The covers of the books featured in the list
Your #IWD2023 Reading List
By Words Without Borders
In honor of International Women’s Day 2023, WWB recommends 10 forthcoming books written and translated by women and published by small presses.
Two distant snowmobiles driving across a snowy field while the sun sets behind snowy mountains
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
The Ear
By Ann-Helén Laestadius
She had seen the man make the sign for death, so she knew this was serious.
Translated from Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles
A river winds through the hilly green countryside in northern Sweden
Photo by Fredrik Posse on Unsplash
The Same River Twice: Notes on Reading, Time, and Translation
By Saskia Vogel
I have been opening this book since 2018 and over the years, I have become many different readers.
Two log cabins, one with a grass roof, in a field next to the water
I, Argus fin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sharing Stories: A Brief Introduction to Sámi Literary History
By Mathilde Magga
For Sámi literature to continue playing its essential role in our culture and to expand its benefits, we need more writers, readers, and translators, which is impossible without support—both financially and through the education system.
Black and white photograph of Sámi people traveling with reindeer
Swedish National Heritage Board, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
The Deportation of the Northern Sámi
By Elin Anna Labba
The children ask where they are going. They, too, have begun to grasp that they are not heading home.
Translated from Swedish by Fiona Graham
Vibrant green northern lights against a dark sky
Photo by Federico Bottos on Unsplash
Two Poems
By Rönn-Lisa Zakrisson
Show me to those southerners / Tell them about all the tongues that are mine / all the nature that’s mine
Translated from Swedish by Fiona Graham
Multilingual
The covers of all the books featured in the list
12 Global Children’s Books for History Lovers
By Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
In celebration of #WorldKidLitMonth, Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp recommends 12 international books for young readers with an interest in world history.
A close-up of a threaded needle
Photo by Sunbeam Photography on Unsplash
Throwing Voices
By Linnea Axelsson
With this needle she can create anew what would otherwise disappear.
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
A herd of reindeer attached to a sled at sunset
Photo by Hans-Jurgen Mager on Unsplash
Polar Fire
By Moa Backe Åstot
Are there homosexual reindeer herders?
Translated from Swedish by B. J. Woodstein
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist: The Blunder, Carnality, Of Saints and Miracles,...
The Watchlist: July 2022
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends exciting new books from Cameroon, Mexico, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and Kazakhstan.
The covers of the six books featured in the article: Solitaire, I'd Like to Say Sorry But There's...
The Watchlist: February 2022
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends exciting new books in translation from Morocco, Argentina, Poland, Chile, Sweden, and Tunisia.
Global Blackness: Black Writers in Translation
By Eric M. B. Becker
Engaging the evolving dialogue that broadens definitions of global Blackness.
From the Other Side
By Roskva Koritzinsky
What happened next, I will never quite understand.
Translated from Norwegian by Becky Crook
Who Dreams of Us?: New Swedish-Language Writing
By Saskia Vogel
Whose story gets to be told?
Two people walk through the snow with the sun rising behind mountains in the distance
Tadeáš Gregor, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
From “Aednan”
By Linnea Axelsson
What kind of home is it / where no one dares say / our son’s name
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
Multilingual
Interlude
By Mara Lee
He squinted at me, swaying in the wind. Blood or soil, he asked.
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
Event Horizon
By Balsam Karam
The sun rose over the mountaintop in a blaze of blue and green and so the day began.
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel & Alice Olsson
From “Wretchedness”
By Andrzej Tichý
He said, this is real, and then he pulled up his shirt and showed us the scars under his arm.
Translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley
Kopparberg Road 20
By Mathias Rosenlund
When you’ve always worked for a low wage, getting a higher wage is a challenge.
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
Alhambra
By Johannes Anyuru
Writing is a post-traumatic symptom.
Translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson
From “White Monkey”
By Adrian Perera
I say change is always painful, / someone has to be the first.
Translated from Swedish by Christian Gullette
Multilingual
From “Twenty-Five Thousand Miles of Nerves”
By Nino Mick
I want to reside in the hard and permanent / so I construct a suite of poems and a man to live inside
Translated from Swedish by Christian Gullette
Multilingual
Past, Future, Present: International Graphic Novels, Volume XII
By Susan Harris
Though much of the art here may be in black and white, the topics addressed are anything but.
Scandorama
By Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo & Catherine Anyango Grünewald
It's almost impossible to get in, but getting kicked out is easy.
Translated by Saskia Vogel
Bret Easton Ellis and Other Dogs
By Lina Wolff
There was no avoiding the fact that Paco Parra wanted Muriel all to himself.
Translated from Swedish by Frank Perry
From “The Memory of a Secret”
By Ester Roxberg
What do we know about our parents?
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
Mine-Wife
By Karin Tidbeck
Above an opening in the robot's chest are the words In the name of Jesus protect man and beast from the followers of Satan.
Translated from Swedish by Silvester Mazzarella
from “The Boys”
By Jessica Schiefauer
“Let us make a pact, gentlemen. Let us brew a Magical Potion and drink together.
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
To a Young Man Who Arrived at the Party Dressed in a Lady’s Fur
By Håkan Sandell
like some awesome Saturday night exoticdancer at the apocalypse
Translated from Swedish by Bill Coyle
Multilingual
Sketch in October
By Tomas Tranströmer
It's a heavy burnt-out lamp, tipped over in the cold.
Translated from Swedish by Robin Robertson
1956
By Gunnar Harding
The shadow-play of thoughts / exposed what words concealed.
Translated from Swedish by Roger Greenwald
Multilingual
From “Pol Pot’s Smile”
By Peter Fröberg Idling
Rows of skulls. Simple and incomprehensible.
Translated from Swedish by Silvester Mazzarella
A Weeknight Before the Turn of the Century
By Klas Östergren
It was so significant that I often, at least in my mind, return to the place where it all happened.
Translated from Swedish by Tiina Nunnally
Puberty
By Gunnar Harding
was it at the Palace of Sport in 1952? a whole school class
Translated from Swedish by Roger Greenwald
Far from Here
By Harry Martinson
I want to send a dream far from here.
Translated from Swedish by Lars Nordstrom
Twenty-two Things Not to Be Trusted
By Håkan Sandell
Twenty-two things not to be trusted: /not night-old ice, not a winter in Skåne
Translated from Swedish by Bill Coyle
The Northwest Express
By Gunnar Harding
even in our sleep there are cables / between us.
Translated from Swedish by Roger Greenwald
Prelude
By Tomas Tranströmer
Waking up is a jump, a skydive from the dream.
Translated from Swedish by Rika Lesser
Heart’s Desire
By Willy Kyrklund
All female psychiatric computers are named Eliza, in accordance with a fine old tradition.
Translated from Swedish by Paul Norlén
The Raffle Ticket
By Jonas Karlsson
The moment Patrik Ohlsson unfolded the raffle ticket and saw the number for the first time, he noticed the intriguing ambiguity.
Translated from Swedish by Laurie Thompson
From “Splendorville”
By Ellen Mattson
Through the window I saw him throw the bundle onto the fire and stand over it until it caught light.
Translated from Swedish by Sarah Death
From “Mozart’s Third Brain”, CIV
By Göran Sonnevi
I listen to all the voices, I hear their care, their rage Hear all
Translated from Swedish by Rika Lesser
From “Mozart’s Third Brain”
By Göran Sonnevi
LVDemocracy’s secret    In free, general elections, with secret ballotsThere, too, is music’s concealment, its inaccessibility, eyeto eye    Where coercive power, over…
Translated from Swedish by Rika Lesser