Recently I received several encouraging digital messages about book reading. The University of Gothenburg, for example, wants to focus on reading fiction to strengthen students’ literacy skills. And sales of printed books are going well.
When it comes to regrowth, it’s much worse. There are national exams in Swedish, the third part of which is taking place today and which are of fundamental importance for the grades that are awarded.
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The fact is that in Sweden you can leave primary school without being able to read and write. The test is therefore divided into three parts:
Oral test in which a maximum of 18 points can be achieved
Reading comprehension test where the maximum score is 35 points
Essay writing where you can score 9 points.
The three parts are then baked together into a point.
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Now of course you’re wondering how many points are required to pass, with the lowest grade being E? This requires 16 points. This means that you can only pass the oral exam, but do not need any reading or writing skills. And feel sorry for the teacher who dares to give a student less than 16 points on the tests. Things aren’t looking good in the school’s marketing department, parents are threatening lawsuits and the bureaucratic process is horrendous.
In this way, the Norwegian education authorities are disguising the fact that so many illiterates will plague secondary schools and universities.
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Here is a practical summary for next year’s national exam, the oral part:
Ask: How did you get to school today?
Answer: No, but more like that subway guy. Yes-a.
(16p)
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Completely independent of this, Ulf Lundell’s debut novel “Jack” from 1976 was published in an anniversary paperback. The cover quotes some of the reviews from the time, with the self-evident slogan “A great generational novel” on the front. Gefle Dagblad’s critic is rhetorical: “Can you bear to read a 425-page novel about today’s youth? Maybe someone will ask. A resounding YES is my answer.” She is glad to have had the opportunity to “take a look into the world of youth, which often seems so foreign and incomprehensible to her.”
The third quote comes from Kvällsposten’s review: “The novel is rather uninteresting.”
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The news from the international literary festival Littfest in Umeå that Ida Börjel has been named this year’s Brunnslock poet is very fresh. The now eight-year-old project bills itself as Sweden’s largest cultural investment. Ida Börjel comments:
– This strange and rather shallow award screams loudly to the mole-like thing in me, I immediately want to open the lid with joy! Up to underground knowledge! Then I think about death.
And who doesn’t?
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In the new issue of the always excellent magazine for literary translation, Med andra ord (No. 126), I read a conversation between editor Jenny Aschenbrenner and two translators who are also writers: Magdalena Sørensen and Annakarin Thorburn. The latter translated, among others, Samanta Schweblin, who has been at the top of the critics’ list for several weeks. Translators could be a little more careful when writing their own texts, they say.
Later in this issue, Örjan Sjögren writes about his work with Clarice Lispector. He translated them at a young age and is now revising his old translations – most recently with the novel “Passions according to GH” (Tranan). He writes: “Clarice didn’t go back and change her lyrics, they say. However, I’ve been thinking about capturing her spontaneous style for twenty years.” It’s worth the time, I think.
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Read previous newsletters about books.
1. Samanta Schweblin: “The Good Evil”
Trans. Annakarin Thorburn. The Crane, 240 pages (1)
Six new, masterfully disturbing and compressed short stories from the Argentine author.
2. Ingela Strandberg: “Under the Lakes”
Norstedts, 76 pages (2)
The new collection reminds us that it is possible to go beyond hackneyed phrases and write poems about life, death and love.
3. Torborg Nedreaas: “Nothing grows from moonlight”
Trans. Cilla Naumann. Wahlström & Widstrand, 288 pages (3)
Norwegian classic novel from 1947 about the abortion ban and the renewed attention to moralism.
4. Johanne Lykke Naderehvandi: “Smoke and Mirrors”
Albert Bonniers Verlag, 302 pages (4)
The Stadsteatern in Malmö is the setting for this novel about coming to terms with a childhood tragedy.
5. Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo: “InSanatorium”
Publisher, 180 pages (5)
Strange and poetic novel about people in a hotel between dreams and reality.
6. Ingrid Elam: “Reading life. The biography, a life drawing”
Nature & Culture, 220 pages (6)
Essay book that writes the history of biography in a courageous and exciting way.
7. Kamel Daoud: “The Scar”
Trans. Ulla Bruncrona. The Crane, 444 pages (7)
Award-winning and controversial novel about the bloody civil war in Algeria from 1992 to 2002.
8. Soraya Bay: “The Horn of Abundance”
Wahlström & Widstrand, 194 pages (8)
Six insightful short stories in a debut collection about women, bodies, class differences and humiliation.
9. Margaret of Navarre: “Heptameron”
Trans. Carin Franzén. Nature & Culture, 622 pages (9)
72 eerily current and stylish short stories from the mid-16th century, inspired by the “Decamerone”.
10. Ian McEwan: “What We Can Know”
Trans. Khashayar Lykke Naderehvandi. Bromberg’s, 400 pages (10)
In the English master’s new novel, the world as we know it is long gone.
Elect ten DN critics
The Critics’ List includes books published after December 14th. Last week’s rankings in brackets. The DN critics Åsa Beckman, Jan Eklund, Johanna Käck, Rebecka Kärde, Kristina Lindquist, Maria Schottenius, Greta Schüldt, Jonas Thente, Malin Ullgren and Gabriel Zetterström vote on the list. All reviews can be read at dn.se/kultur
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