Festin, Jesper

Jesper Festin, born in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1988, is a literary translator from German. He currently lives in Uppsala and Berlin.
After studying German language and literature in Lund and Berlin, as well as literary translation at the Valand Academy in Gothenburg, he published his first translation, the children’s book Ich groß du klein by Lilli L’Arronge, in 2015. Since then, he has translated about 15 works into Swedish, including Die Kieferninseln by Marion Poschmann, Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann and Die Obstdiebin by Peter Handke.
In 2023 he received the Swedish Academy's Translation prize.

Hallberg, Ulf Peter

Ulf Peter Hallberg grew up in Malmö, absolved a two year graphic education, worked four years as a stripping man, then studied at the Sorbonne and finished a master’s degree in Comparative literature, English and German at Lund University in 1981. Then he worked in the harbour, at the docks. In 1983 he arrived in Berlin with a DAAD scholarship and studied with the philosopher Michael Theunissen at Freie Universität for three years.1988-89 he lived in East-Berlin and worked at Berliner Ensemble, mainly with Heiner Müller productions such as Germania Tod in Berlin (B.E.) and The Commission (Rostock). Between 1998-2002 he was artistic director at Malmö City Theatre, after that he has worked continually as a collaborator with the Royal Dramatic Theatre and other theatres in Sweden, but Hallberg’s residency has remained in Berlin-Schöneberg.
Hallberg’s literary debut, the essay-novel The Flaneur’ s Gaze (1993; Der Blick des Flaneurs, 1995) took the image of the flâneur into the present, followed by Night at Social North. Anatomy Lesson (1999), Grand Tour (2005), The Stolen Football (2006), and Legends & Lies. Italian Stories (2007). European Trash (2009) tells stories circling around a collector and art-lover; Strindberg’s Shadow in the Paris of the North (2011) is a historical novel set in Copenhagen 1887–89.
Hallberg has translated Shakespeare, Molière and Walter Benjamin – Schiller, Wedekind, Brecht, Handke, Schwab, Schimmelpfennig and several other contemporary German and English playwrights. Since 2014 he teaches “Écriture / traduction” 4-6 weeks a year at Ètudes Nordiques, Sorbonne, maintaining a collaboration with the cultural organization “Energheia” in Matera.
In 2016 Hallberg was awarded The Letterstedt Translation Award by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences for his Shakespeare translations, and in 2018 he was awarded the Kellgren Prize from the Swedish Academy for his literary works. In recent years he has published the novels Berlin Transit. The Unfinished (2019), a new version of Strindberg’s Shadow (2019), and the play Richard II and the Future (2020). His most recent work (co-edited by John Swedenmark) is The Strategies of Solitude. The Flâneur, the Collector, Art and the Ideals of Life (2022).

Hansson, Gunnar D.

Born in 1945 on the island of Smögen north of Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden, prof. emeritus of the University of Gothenburg (Department of Literature, History of Ideas and Religion) and lecturer in "Litterär gestaltning" at the Faculty of Arts, received his PhD with a thesis on Swedish novelist Lars Ahlin.
He has been active as literary historian, essayist and translator of Old English and Old Icelandic poetry, together with Ildikó Márky also of the Hungarian authors Endre Ady and Péter Esterházy. Debut as a poet in 1979, since then 12 volumes of poetry, such as Olunn 1989, Lunnebok 1991, Idegransöarna 1994, AB Neandertal 1996, Lomonosovryggen 2009 and the volume Tapeshavet (2017). Most recently the essay collection: Garbo går iland (2020).

Several literary awards including the Bellmanprize in 2004 and the Ekelöfprize in 2009. In 2010 Gunnar D. Hansson and Ildikó Márky received the Translator's Prize of the Swedish Academy.

Iliste, Ivo

Ivo Ago Iliste was born in Tartu, Estonia's second city, in 1935. His childhood was also spent in the southern Estonian towns of Elva and Kambja, where his father Martin Iliste worked as a provincial doctor. His mother Erna had studied art history in Tartu. In the autumn of 1944, the family fled Estonia along with tens of thousands of other countrymen. Via Poland they reached Germany, where they spent five years in refugee camps. Ivo Iliste had to interrupt his primary education because of the flight, and completed it at the Estonian school in Lübeck in 1948. From 1950 the family's permanent residence was Sweden. Iliste graduated from Västervik in 1953, and two years later he went to Uppsala to study at university.

In the intellectual centre of the Estonian diaspora, Iliste immersed himself in both interwar Estonian literature and exiled Estonian literature. He made a name for himself with radical articles in exiled Estonian newspapers and magazines such as Teataja and Vaba Eesti; he condemned Estonian exile literature and accused writers of dredging up and romanticizing the past instead of creating something new. In line with this polemic, in 1957 he co-founded, together with Ivar Grünthal, Ilmar Laaban and Alur Reinan, the cultural magazine Mana. A BA in history and political science from Uppsala in 1961 was followed by a MA from the Stockholm School of Education in 1964. During the 1960s he was on the board of several Swedish, exiled Estonian and international student organisations and was an editorial board member and editor of several journals. His work as a course leader at SIDA in the mid-1960s took him to countries such as India, Afghanistan, South Africa and Venezuela.

In 1970, the Baltic Institute in Stockholm was founded to increase knowledge of and promote cultural cooperation with the occupied Baltic states. Under Iliste's leadership from 1986 to 1996, the Baltic Institute organised literature and film festivals, theatre performances, concerts and art exhibitions. His earliest translations from Estonian into Swedish were not always of the highest quality and were usually done via Finnish. For a long time there was no stable platform for Estonian literature in Swedish translation until Iliste, together with his wife, Birgitta Göranson, created one. Once established in professional life, their collaboration soon expanded to include joint cultural work in her spare time. In 1975, they published a book each: Ivo's poetry collection Lergods, Birgitta's diary-based A Neighbourhood in Bogotá. In 1977-1980 they worked on local environmental work and peasant co-operation in South India for a local Emmaus organisation. At the same time, they completed their first joint translation assignment: the collection Estonian Short Stories, published in Tallinn in 1981, containing works by classic authors such as Eduard Vilde and Friedebert Tuglas. Although the family settled in the countryside just outside Lund, although Iliste's main professional base was in Stockholm.

The political situation in the Baltic States created new opportunities for translations from Estonian into Swedish from the early 1980s. From 1981 to 2002, the Iliste-Göranson couple published 18 titles, three of which were reprinted, and translated some twenty journal issues. They were particularly active during the years when Iliste worked at the Baltic Institute: four new translations were published in 1986 alone, followed by one or two new works per year. They devoted themselves mainly to the literature of contemporary writers who had emerged during the Soviet era, which was facilitated by the gradual opening of borders, enabling Estonian writers in exile to establish contacts with their colleagues and compatriots on the other side of the Baltic. The couple's most important translation work was undoubtedly to make Jaan Kross's prose available to Swedish readers. From the early 1980s, Kross would achieve international fame for his historical novels. The translators themselves have described their approach. First, Iliste would familiarize himself with the work linguistically and historically and deliver a rough translation, lined with question marks and comments. Göranson would then go through and rewrite the manuscript, fine-tuning the nuances, after which the translators would jointly compare the translation sentence by sentence with the original.

Another writer the couple worked on was Jaan Kaplinski, of whom they translated two collections of poetry, a correspondence (with Johannes Salminen) and an art book in 1982-1990. The translations by Kaplinski - one of Estonia's most notable contemporary writers and himself a translator of works such as Tomas Tranströmer into Estonian - constitute a legacy of great importance. In addition to these authors, Iliste and Göranson translated two collections of poetry by Viivi Luik and a series of plays by Merle Karusoo and Paul-Erik Rummo, among others. Poems by Ilmar Laaban, Andres Ehin, Enn Vetemaa and others have been published in journals such as Baltic Review or performed at poetry readings. Their last translation was the collection of poems Nådatid (2001) by Doris Kareva.

Ivo Iliste died on 1 December 2002 in Dalby, near Lund.

Filip Laurits

Göranson, Birgitta

Birgitta Göranson was born in Lund in 1947. Both parents were first-generation academics and educators. After studying natural sciences in Kristianstad, she went on to study at Lund University, where she obtained a bachelor's degree in 1969 in literary studies and sociology. The next few years were marked by freelance cultural work and international justice issues. During travels on the continent, Göranson came into contact with the Emmaus Movement's efforts at local organisation and then worked on literacy and popular organisation in Colombia from 1970 to 1972. This work was followed by a couple of books on Latin American development issues. Göranson was employed as a teacher of international studies and later also as an education director at the Development Education Board (Sandöskolan) outside of Kramfors 1972-1988. It was during the preparation of the first curricula at Sandöskolan that she began working with Ivo Iliste.

In 1975 they published a book each: Ivo's poetry collection Lergods, Birgitta's diary-based Ett kvarter i Bogotá. In 1977-1980 they worked on local environmental work and peasant co-operation in South India for a local Emmaus organisation. At the same time, they completed their first joint translation assignment: a collection of Estonian Short Stories, published in Tallinn in 1981, containing works by classic authors such as Eduard Vilde and Friedebert Tuglas. They now settled in the countryside just outside Lund, although Iliste's main professional base was in Stockholm.

The political situation in the Baltic States created new opportunities for translations from Estonian into Swedish from the early 1980s. From 1981 to 2002, the Iliste-Göranson couple published 18 titles, three of which were reprinted, and translated some twenty journal issues. They were particularly active during the years when Iliste worked at the Baltic Institute in Stockholm. The pair devoted themselves mainly to the literature of contemporary writers who had emerged during the Soviet era, which was facilitated by the gradual opening of borders, enabling Estonian writers in exile to establish contacts with their colleagues and compatriots on the other side of the Baltic. At the same time, Göranson wrote a number of works on development issues.

The couple's most important translation work was undoubtedly to make Jaan Kross's prose available to Swedish readers. First, Iliste would familiarize himself with the work linguistically and historically and deliver a rough translation, lined with question marks and comments. Göranson would then go through and rewrite the manuscript, fine-tuning the nuances, after which the translators would jointly compare the translation sentence by sentence with the original. Another writer the couple worked on was Jaan Kaplinski, of whom they translated two collections of poetry, a correspondence (with Johannes Salminen) and an art book in 1982-1990. The translations by Kaplinski - one of Estonia's most notable contemporary writers and himself a translator of works such as Tomas Tranströmer into Estonian - constitute a legacy of great importance. In addition to these authors, Iliste and Göranson translated two collections of poetry by Viivi Luik and a series of plays by Merle Karusoo and Paul-Erik Rummo, among others. Poems by Ilmar Laaban, Andres Ehin, Enn Vetemaa and others have been published in journals such as Baltic Review or performed at poetry readings. Their last translation was the collection of poems Nådatid (2001) by Doris Kareva.

Filip Laurits

Westerdahl, Christer

Christer Westerdahl, born in Stockholm 1945, studied various disciplines of the Humanities there and other places and went on as freelance or as a museum curator to archaeological and ethnological fieldwork, mainly in Northern Sweden and other parts of Scandinavia.
He specialized in maritime archaeology and was called in as an Associate Professor of this subject at Copenhagen University, Denmark. His next academic appointment was at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. From here he retired from active lecturing in 2015 as a professor emeritus.
His main approach is the maritime cultural landscape which he launched as a strategy in the late 1980's. Among his book publications are: Samer nolaskogs. Örnsköldsvik 1986; Norrlandsleden I. Källor till det maritima kulturlandskapet. En handbok i marinarkeologisk inventering. The Norrland Sailing Route I. Sources of the maritime cultural landscape. A handbook of maritime archaeological survey. Arkiv för norrländsk hembygdsforskning XXIV. Härnösand 1987 and Norrlandsleden II. Beskrivning av det maritima kulturlandskapet. Rapport från en inventering i Norrland och norra Roslagen 1975-1980. The Norrland Sailing Route II. Description of the maritime cultural landscape. Report from a survey in Norrland and northern Roslagen, Sweden, in 1975-1980. Arkiv för norrländsk hembygdsforskning XXIII. Härnösand 1987