Saskia Vogel is an American writer and translator of contemporary Swedish literature. We discuss the intricacies of translation, the metoo movement in Sweden, and her debut novel, Permission. Saskia Vogel : I would say that one of my favorite pieces of editorial advice was: it needs to sound good. And I think that is a really good rule of thumb. Like, I want the reader to feel the book as I have felt it, or as I feel the writer wants you to feel in Swedish.
I want to convey what the writer is conveying, and sometimes that means you do have to stray from the original a bit. Swedish has a great capacity to hold a lot of silence in a very powerful and meaningful way, which can just be super flat in English.
You know, like, dialogue can be too perfunctory if you just keep it as sparse as it can be in Swedish. Why did Kim look at Saskia and then Saskia looked out the window?
I think part of the job of translating is to, yes, translate the language, but also translate the feeling, but also the culture. And sometimes that means intervening in the text a bit more. Colin Gioia Connors: Welcome to Crossing North: a podcast where we learn from Nordic and Baltic artists, scholars, and community members to better understand our world, our communities, and ourselves.
Saskia Vogel has been translating ever since she can remember. She grew up in Los Angeles in a bilingual household, English and German, and after moving to Sweden in her early teens, learned Swedish as well. Saskia has worked as a global publicist for Granta, a British literary magazine, and currently volunteers for the Finnish film festival, Viva Erotica.
