The afternoon of the last day of september in 2021 I had the honour of meeting and interviewing Ingrid Wikén Bonde. A translator who has been the recipient of both Dutch, Flemish and Swedish translator prizes, among them the Martinus Nijhoff prize in 1979 and the Swedish Writers Union’s prize for literary achievement in 1980, but also having been awarded the grade of officer of the order of Orange-Nassau from the Dutch queen Beatrix in 1999. Beyond her more than 40 translations from Dutch to Swedish alone she has also translated some of the works of Sigmund Freud from German, been one of the few having translated from Afrikaans to Swedish, not to mention her work to establish the academic status of Dutch studies during her long-standing tenure as senior lecturer at the University of Stockholm.

We begin our conversation on the topic of special experiences she remembers from her long career and any particular works that have been the most rewarding or the most frustrating to translate. One of the favourites that she mentions is working on Minoes (Missan in Swedish) by Annie M.G. Schmidt, because of the pleasant memories associated with the translation.

In addition, she mentions the honour she felt getting to translate Schmidt, due to her status as the greatest children’s book author in the Netherlands. But what about more difficult projects?

A translation that she however describes as particularly challenging was Het huis van de moskee (Huset vid moskén in Swedish) by Kader Abdolah. One of the book’s biggest challenges was Abdolah’s sprinkling of quotes from the Quran, of course leaving out which particular sura they are from. A big part of being a successful translator is being able to find pertinent information and Ingrid explains how she solved this conundrum by simply procuring both of the modern Swedish translations of the Quran and reading them through until she found the right quotes. Another challenge lay in how to handle all the Persian names and words found in the text, drawn from the author’s native language.

She continues by explaining how she feels that the relationship between translator and publisher has changed.

Sometimes she was also asked to suggest a work to be translated. One such suggestion led to her Swedish retranslation of Multatuli’s Max Havelaar from 1979. Her first translation, De kapellekensbaan (Lilla kapellets väg in Swedish) by Louis Paul Boon, also originated as a suggestion by her.

The publishers decide what to translate for their own reasons. These include asking themselves: “Is there a good book out there on the market, dealing with a topical theme, that we can sell?”, she says.

Then I ask if there’s a particular Dutch-language book that she feels is missing in Swedish. A name that comes up is Arthur van Schendel, in particular his book De waterman from 1933 that depicts the life of a bargeman in the early 19th century. Out of all the works of van Schendel, only his piece of maritime fiction Het fregatschip Johanna Maria (Fregatten Johanna Maria in Swedish) is available in Swedish.

I ask, considering her experience translating from other languages to Swedish, if there’s anything that makes Dutch translation stand out.

She elaborates that this has a lot to do with the fact that Dutch is reasonably similar to Swedish, with its lack of long rows of complicated subordinate clauses, that you would rather find in the German of Sigmund Freud for instance. She also makes a point out of the flexibility of the Swedish language; it’s usually possible to stay reasonably close in a translation while retaining multiple options. In an example from a translation course she gave at the university, she describes how ten different students could present ten different translations of a single word, without her being able to tell which one was necessarily the best. The most important thing is being able to find the right tone for every situation, particularly for students who come across idioms and expressions.

”The translations led to the thesis which led to being qualified to supervise PhD students

so that the Dutch Department at Stockholm University could survive.”