Yes, if you were wondering where we were, we took a little jaunt courtesy of the Danish Arts Council to the BogForum book fair in Copenhagen, then on to Stockholm courtesy of the fine folks at the Swedish Authors Foundation. Thanks for the support, Denmark and Sweden! (And thanks to Norway too for the translators conference in May.)
Here's Tiina in the rain at the Medborgarplatsen T-bana station in Söder, just around the corner from Lisbeth's old hangout Kvarnen, with the best food in Sweden. The Nordic lands put on their best November weather for us: rain almost every day and a couple of hours of weak sunshine in Copenhagen; in Stockholm it cleared up the morning we left from Arlanda airport. And the darkness at 4 in the afternoon was, as they put it, "kompakt." But we met lots of very nice editors, agents, and authors (some of whom we've been translating for years from afar but had never met). This trip should result in some hot new crime novels for you in the next couple of years, as well as some excellent new mainstream fiction. More info on that when the deals are made.
I'll post more pix as soon as the jet lag calms down a bit. Got to see Billy's Pan Pizza in the 7-11 too, sorry I didn't have a nuker to heat one up in. They're about the size of a paperback book and quite good if you add more stuff on top, according to one Swedish informant.
A nice Christmas present arrived by phone from the Swedish Academy: a special award for Tiina for her contributions to “the introduction of Swedish culture abroad.” Cited in particular were her translations of works by Per Olov Enquist, Bodil Jönsson, Astrid Lindgren, and Klas Östergren. Here's a photo of the home of the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Museum in the old Stock Exchange building in Gamla Stan. (Thanks to Galen Frysinger of Sheboygan for the loan of the pic — a much better photographer than I, and with much better weather.)
