Nordic responses : translation, history, literary culture

This book discusses literary translation in the cultural and historical context of the Nordic countries. Focusing on a range of authors and exploring various aspects and challenges of translation, the contributors emphasize the interdependence of and interrelationships between translation, literature, literary history and literary culture. Although the main emphasis is on translations of individual works and authors, attention is also paid to “translation” as an inevitable element in other forms of writing, including the presence of the “foreign” in original writing, and the translational element in any literary discussion of foreign literature. - The volume thus aims to broaden the scope of literary history and of literary studies. A growing awareness of the importance of translation can be witnessed in all the Nordic countries. As these countries have a strong mutual interest in each other’s cultures, translations between their languages are also import­ant. All in all, the volume demonstrates how ideas, values, genres and literary forms travel in translation – both between the Nordic languages and between the Nordic languages and those outside the Nordic region.