Swedish and Scandinavian Authors in English Translation

Frans G. Bengtsson

The Long Ships
The adventure novel written in Swedish, this book describes the adventures and travels of a viking in Spain, Denmark, Sweden, England and Russia. Very well-written and thoroughly researched. Famous for being the only book written in Lund to have been mentioned favourably in a student song of Uppsala.

Karin Boye

One of the major poets in Swedish literature, she also wrote some novels, Kallocain being one of the most well known, a dystopy that compares favourably with You Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 or 1984.
Web pages of interest

• Projekt Runeberg's copies of works by Karin Boye (texts are in Swedish only, though the indices are in English).
• Karin Boye Sällskapet has some of her poems in English translations, as well as other resources in Swedish. Sorry to say, the translations are not that good.

Astrid Lindgren

While Lindgren's books are children's books, her themes are almost always mature and adult. She is without doubt the the most well-known and widely published Swedish author, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, even though her last book - Ronja the Robber's Daughter - was published over ten years ago. Her production includes the Emil and Pippi Longstocking books, The Brother's Lionheart and Mio my Mio. Many of her books have also been made into movies - but avoid the American renderings.

IMO, she should be given the Nobel Prize in literature.

Vilhelm Moberg

The Emigrant Cycle

• The Emigrants
• Unto A Good Land
• The Settlers
• The Last Letter Home

By many considered as the Swedish national epic, it tells the story of a Swedish family who emigrates to Minnesota during the 1840's. As such, it deals as much with the American heritage as the Swedish.

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

In the 60's and 70's this pair wrote a series of ten mystery novels under the collective title "Novel about a crime", managing to combine an Ed McBain-like style with social awareness and critique. They are widely regarded as some of the best mystery novels ever written, and still scores continued success - nationally and abroad. I can especially recommend The Laughing Policeman, Roseanna and The Abominable Man.

Almost all of their books have been put onto film. Roseanna is especially good.
Web pages of interest

• A longer review of The Laughing Policeman, by Spidra Webster

Some outside resources

Projekt Runeberg is a project dedicated to publishing Nordic literature and art in the public domain in electronic form. While the overwhelming majority of their texts is in Nordic languages, they also have indices over Nordic authors, as well as biographical data, some of which is linked above.