Tomas Transtromer wins Nobel literature prize

Well, I'm intrigued. Never read one of his poems. I'll have to search them out.

I'm going to look for some too. Were there English translations? I'm afraid my Swedish is quite limited ... non-existent, you might even say.

Which makes me think: How does the Nobel prize committee read all of the nominations, in different languages? Is that a silly question? I'm going to go see if I can find out.

This is what I found quickly:

The 107 Nobel Laureates in Literature from 1901 to 2010 have been writing/writes in the following languages:

English 26
French 13
German 13
Spanish 11
Italian 6
Swedish 6
Russian 5
Polish 4
Norwegian 3
Danish 3
Greek 2
Japanese 2
Arabic 1
Bengalis 1
Chinese 1
Czech 1
Finnish 1
Hebrew 1
Hungarian 1
Icelandic 1
Occitan 1
Portuguese 1
Serbo-Croatian 1
Turkish 1
Yiddish 1


http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/shortfacts.html

I guess, if you get to the point where you might be nominated, you're already at the point where there will be translations of your work available?

I like his verse (the 2 examples you linked to, Patty), gloriously dark and cerebral -- and that he's buddies with Bly is no shocker either after having read them (also seeing as Bly served as translator). Robert Bly has a great legacy to leave the world, having introduced the US publishing and academic literary powerhouses to some of the finest international poetry, effectively creating the first steps to an international poetry community beyond national identity and borders.

I wish I knew more than a spattering of Swedish to really appreciate them as there is always something lost in translation, in fact I don't believe a true translation can exist (having often translated from German to Dutch, Dutch to German, both to English, English to both) only a new poem based heavily on another.

Ok, that's it -- decided. I'm off to learn some Scandinavian.