Professor Mara Lee Gerdén on translating the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Anne Carson

Photo: Emma Hansson

This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, Canadian poet, author and translator Anne Carson, is renowned for her original, genre-defying language. Her writing explores themes including love and desire, grief and loss, memory, antiquity and mythology, often through unexpected encounters between classical myths, philosophical ideas and everyday experiences. Mara Lee Gerdén’s translations include Autobiography of Red (2009), The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (2012), Red Doc> (2015), Short Talks (2017) and The Albertine Workout (2020).

Tell us how it all began, and what it is like to translate a writer who deliberately pushes the boundaries of language and moves between poetry, essay and narrative.
– I used to spend a lot of time in the US, and a friend of mine, an American opera librettist, recommended her writing in the early 2000s. I was knocked sideways by the very first sentence of Autobiography of Red. My encounter with her literature was so powerful that I thought everyone should be able to experience the feeling of reading her in their own mother tongue. And if I could contribute to that – convey at least a spark of that feeling – then I would have achieved something.
The practice of translation is about entering a particular room. Perhaps especially when translating poetry. You are attention, from the inside out.

How would you describe Anne Carson’s language?
– It is sensual, but also razor-sharp. It has its own rhythm. Carson is a master of audacious line breaks and phrases that turn their own premises upside down. Her interest in volcanoes is reflected in her language. Heat, abyss. There is also a strong sense of orality.

You have said that translating Anne Carson’s work has taught you an enormous amount, but that the challenges posed by a “web of hidden quotations” were considerable. Could you tell us more?
– The most important thing in my work is to preserve the literary form of the original, rather than follow the words literally. The translation must work as literature in Swedish, with its own rhythm and precision. This becomes particularly complicated when the text is full of hidden quotations and allusions. Something that is obvious to an English-speaking reader may become incomprehensible or simply sound strange in Swedish. You then have to weigh fidelity to the original against the literary life of the Swedish text. Sometimes you have to compromise; sometimes you have to find another solution. The important thing is to make conscious choices and be able to stand by them. And it is precisely through this process – through the concrete problems and the resistance between languages – that I have learnt so much from Carson.

Do you have a favourite among the works you have translated? Which one, and why?
– The Beauty of the Husband, perhaps. It takes marriage as its framework, along with love for an unfaithful, breathtakingly beautiful man. It may sound banal, but it is about as far from banality as you can get. There are no easy black-and-white answers here. Instead, it is an exploration of desire, attachment and the power of beauty both to seduce and to destroy. Carson is utterly masterful here. Her erudition, humour, brutality and tenderness all coexist in the same work. It is a book you cannot defend yourself against.

How would you describe the role of literary translation in shaping the international reception of literature and influencing the selection of Nobel Prize laureates in Literature?
– It is incredibly important. The importance of being able to access high-quality international literature translated into Swedish cannot be overstated. It is vital both to the Swedish language and to Swedish culture. Sweden has traditionally been good at translating literary works into Swedish, and this has been central to the vitality of its literature and the renewal of the language.
And as for the Nobel Prize: no literature can be assessed in an international vacuum. Translations make authors’ work accessible and possible to compare. They help create the literary and cultural public sphere that is one of the cornerstones of civilisation.