a blog by Peter Leonard
We had a class visit today from the Swedish author Marjaneh Bakhtiari, whose book Kalla det vad fan du vill we're reading in our Prose seminar. There were ten of us in the class who had read the book, which made it a pretty unique opportunity in North America to discuss contemporary literature with an author from Scandinavia.
Marjaneh gave a presentation in Swedish and then we filled the rest of the two hours with a discussion in English. Amongst the guests in the class today were Anna, our new Nordic librarian, and Paul Norlén, who famously translated Ernst Brunner's epic-length Fukta din aska into English.
Although I've been organizing this event it wouldn't have been possible without the support of the Swedish Institute, especially Charlotta Johansson. It was at a Swedish Institute summer course that Ralitsa and I first met Marjaneh -- the picture above was taken in the lounge at the folk highschool on Tjörn, as we read the book in preparation for her talk there.
Tomorrow there's a public talk in English at the Humanities Center, and then we head off to New York City for an event at Scandinavia House.