is investigating a story that Louise sent me about the International Society of Arctic Char fanatics, and their struggles against some horrible development in Scotland. Better yet, I could be fishing for char (röding) because despite living for years in the southern reaches of countries where they are found I have only ever caught one in my whole life, and that was in Lake Bohinj, in Slovenia, where I didn’t know they existed until one grabbed my fly.
Instead, though, the bits of the next two months that aren’t spent doing journalism will be taken up with reading. I am a judge this year for the Bernard Shaw prize for translation out of Swedish to English , and they have just sent me the entries:
Apologies for grotty cameraphone picture: never mind the quality, marvel at the height.
Any chance of a glance at the card, for the runners and riders? I think I can spot some usual suspects: Mankell, Larsson…
Doesn’t the picture blow up until these minor details are legible? It does when I click on it. But, yes, Mankell and Larsson are both there. Neither a great test for the translator, I would have thought. Just as a problem in translation, there would be much greater difficulty with Jens Lapidus, though I am glad he’s not here. What the hell is the English for “En blatte med tung heder”?
Currently reading Sven Lindqvist: the guilt, the guilt! The liberal guilt! it burns! Aja Baja, Australien
But we have also Tove Jansson and Tranströmer, among others.
I was one of those responsible for instituting the Shaw translation prize back in 1991. Sorry for causing you so much trouble.