Gun-Britt Sundström: The Husband
This is the first article in our new digital series Translator's Choice. In the article series you will meet the translators awarded grants for sample translations and learn about the books that they have chosen to present to selected publishers in their country. First out is the translator Kathy Saranpa. She will approach publishing houses in the United States to raise their interest in this contemporary Swedish classic:
The translator's choice
Maken (The Husband) by Gun-Britt Sundström
Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy proposes. Boy and girl marry.
It’s a classic formula for a love story. But this particular novel, set in Stockholm in the 1970s, leaves the formula mid-story. In fact, when Maken (The Husband) was first published in 1976, such a firestorm of discussion around relationships was kindled in Sweden that people spoke of ‘Maken divorces’ afterwards.
Several things about this book cry out for translation into English. The main characters are so credible and well-drawn, you’re sure you’ve met them somewhere. Martina, the first-person narrator of the book, has a sense of wry humour coupled with sharp introspection; you can’t help but root for her, no matter how many times she blunders into difficult situations of her own making. We’ve all been there. She is a feminist to the core, not from political conviction. The love between her and Gustav is not a sugar-coated romance, but rather a struggle to find a way to be together when one person wants a common home, marriage and babies, and one person doesn’t. Although they meet before the digital age, their story still feels new, painful, and full of hope.
About the translator
Kathy Saranpa was born in the US and now works as a literary translator in Germany. A teacher and freelance translator of commercial texts, she caught the literary translating bug when she worked on rendering Ingrid and Joachim Wall’s Boken om Kim into English. It was published in in 2020 as A Silenced Voice (Amazon Crossing). She has wanted to translate Maken into her native language, English, for a very long time.
Gun-Britt Sundström (born 1945)
Works
- Student -64, novel, 1966.
- För Lydia, novel, 1973.
- Ture går till tandläkaren, picture book, 1989.
Awards
- Stockholm City Honorary Award, 1979.
- Stockholm University Honorary Doctor 2003.
The book
Maken, en förhållanderoman, novel, 1976, 541 pages.
Publisher
Albert Bonniers Förlag.
Rights
Gun-Britt Sundström (approached through Albert Bonniers förlag).