This week, our editors bring news of a major literature prize in Sweden, disturbing governmental policies repressing freedom of speech in Bulgaria, and the rebirth of a central bookstore in Gaza. Read on to find out more!
Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden
The Nordic Council has announced the nominees of its annual Literature Prize, which has awarded a work of fiction in a Nordic language since 1962. The languages include Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic, Greenlandic, Faroese, and Sámi. The literary works considered may be novels, plays, essays, short stories, or poetry of artistic and literary quality. The purpose of the award is to create interest in the literatures and languages within the cultural community of the Nordic region. This year, eleven nominated writers represent all the countries and languages of the region, and four of the works are novels written in Swedish.
Kerstin Ekman is one of Sweden’s most acclaimed writers, with a long list of publications since her debut in 1959. In 1994, she was awarded the Nordic Council Literature Prize for the novel Blackwater, available in English translation by Joan Tate. This year, she is nominated for The Wolf Run, a novel about a man in his seventies and his relationship to nature as he comes to terms with his life. The other Swedish nominee is Jesper Larsson, for Den dagen den sorgen (literally translated as That Day That Sorrow, or also as “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”), about a single father and his relationship to his teenage daughter. Finnish writer Kaj Korkea-aho, nominated for Röda rummet, also writes in Swedish, and so does Ålandic writer Karin Erlandsson, who is nominated for the novel Hem. The winner will be announced on November 1, during the Nordic Council’s Session in Helsinki. Previous winners include the internationally renowned Sofi Oksanen (Dog Park, Purge, When the Doves Disappeared), Jon Fosse (The Other Name, Trilogy, Morning and Evening), and Nobel Prize laureate Tomas Tranströmer.
More financial support to Swedish writers is on the way in the form of a crisis package. Because of the consequences of the pandemic faced by many writers during the past two years, the Swedish Authors’s Fund has received thirty million SEK from the government. The organization has now decided that around 1,500 writers and literary creators who were previously granted scholarships will each receive an additional amount of approximately twenty thousand SEK.
Andriana Hamas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Bulgaria
After the three rounds of controversial parliamentary elections held in Bulgaria last year, one could easily imagine that the way all government affairs are currently handled is a far cry from ideal. These past weeks, however, have witnessed the resurfacing of an even more disturbing trend, which could doubtless have dire consequences for the local literary scene. A far-right political party has proposed a new bill that, once approved, would outlaw the use of words whose origins could be traced to other languages, especially those that already have a Bulgarian “equivalent.”
Reminiscent of what George Orwell had in mind when he imagined his notorious Thought Police—the entity in charge of managing “thought crimes” committed in the world of the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four—the law envisions the creation of new administrative bodies authorized to implement the desired changes on a nationwide scale. For example, the suggested “Council for the Bulgarian language” would be bestowed the power to “control” people’s speech and to impose fines on all citizens and institutions that fail to comply with the established criteria. It goes without saying that, according to the “patriotic” MPs, foreign nationals who do not possess “sufficient” knowledge of the Bulgarian vocabulary and syntax should not work in the country, perhaps apart from diplomats. Exceptions will be made only for certain literary and journalistic modes of expression, in which the use of “generally accepted dialect words” would be allowed. In moderation, of course.
In an interview for a fairly well-known Bulgarian newspaper, the leader of the party defended the measure, claiming that “the norms of the language should not be distorted and previously non-existent words should not be introduced [. . .] If we fail to protect it, our language will gradually become a mixture of foreignisms with mere traces of a Bulgarian grammatical construction.”
As the proverb goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large for Palestine and the Palestinians, reporting from Palestine
“War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Indeed! What happened in Gaza city three weeks ago proves Bertrand Russell correct, time and again. When Israel bombed Gaza in May 2021, the famed Samir Mansour Bookshop, with its hundred thousand books, was reduced to rubble. As devastating as it was, neither the owner nor thousands of supporters from around the world submitted to the machine of war. On February 17, exactly nine months after the bombing, the new Samir Mansour Bookshop was born again.
Following a successful international crowdfunding campaign spearheaded by human rights lawyers Mahvish Rukhsana and Clive Stafford Smith, Samir Mansour Bookshop, formerly the largest bookshop in Gaza, has been rebuilt and restocked. The campaign accrued more than $250,000, with individuals, publishers, and book companies donating and shipping 150,000 books, which wound their way to Gaza courtesy of an equally beneficent shipping company.
“In truth, my own minor role in all this came because my colleague, the Pashtun-American lawyer Mahvish Rukhsana, told me I should help,” Clive Stafford Smith tells The Bookseller. “She was right. We conducted a campaign so that Samir’s phoenix could rise from the ashes.” Palestine Chronicle ran a photo-essay featuring the new store, which will also function as a library, now located just one hundred meters from the old shop and almost three times its former size. “The outpouring of support for this campaign is testament to the global solidarity to help him rebuild and restock,” said Mahvish Rukhsana,
At the opening ceremony, hundreds of Gazans came to celebrate—a rare opportunity for a city under blockade for over fifteen years. Filled with joy and gratitude, Samir Mansour said, “The day my bookshop was destroyed, I felt alone, but I found that there was great humanity in people to stand by me. I thank everyone who helped bring my library back to life. I feel so happy to be able to reopen it.”
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