Tag: Bloody Awful in Different Ways

Mum’s Lada has broken down and been left by the roadside. That evening, they return in the Canoeist’s red Volvo – complete with towbar – to retrieve it.

What follows are just two of my favourite paragraphs in the whole book. The first evokes such a powerful and clear image of the moment (I’ve always thought it odd how we see snapshots in the glare of headlights at night); the second offers us a portal to another time altogether that seems distant now.

By the time we’re close to Norrköping it’s so dark that the only thing visible is the tow rope extending behind us, black in the red glow of the tail lights. I think it looks like a fishing line, baited with a mum and lowered into a dark lake. I shudder whenever the line careens and vibrates, exhaling every time the lights of the oncoming traffic reveal she’s still there.

We drop off the Lada on the industrial estate on Händelö. It’ll be declared dead the next day but won’t be scrapped because Mum will receive a tip-off that old Soviet cars can be sold in the Port of Norrköping. There’s a shortage of spare parts in the Soviet Union and Russian seamen pay more for an old Lada than the scrap merchant.

I didn’t have anything else to add. I just really like this section.

All the best things I know how to say are inspired by reading or hearing others use it first and liking it.

One of the pleasures of being read and edited is the way it expands your own language and mind. It makes you a better translator. More words and more tricks up your sleeve to deal with the problems left on the page for you by the original author. Of course, it goes without saying that when translating, the ultimate inspiration for the text you’re writing is the author’s original version. Sometimes you’re inspired by them.

In the first proper chapter of ‘Bloody Awful in Different Ways’, Andrev says:

Växtmagikern ska lära mig en sista sak men jag kan inte börja där. (Det har jag väl förvisso redan gjort men jag tänker att ansatsen kan ligga kvar för den duger som brofäste till en dramaturgisk båge.)

That use of ‘dramaturgisk’ is interesting (my Norstedts Swedish-English dictionary tells me it means ‘dramaturgic’) – I don’t think I’ve encountered the word in any translation I’ve worked on before (with the exception of a volume on critical theory in the performing arts) and it strikes me as unusual. Still, it felt right. A bit offbeat, yes, but right. My editor questioned it. But I stood my ground.

This is a cute sidebar from our author (it’s even bracketed!) rather than our protagonist (if you’ll tolerate this confusing distinction). It’s also revisited in the opening lines of Part 3 about the Thief, and that echo when using a difficult word like ‘dramaturgy’ is so satisfying in a way that a simpler alternative wouldn’t be. And so, inspired by Andrev’s own choice, I stuck with it.

The Plant Magician is going to teach me one final thing, but I shouldn’t start there. (I have most assuredly already done so, but I think the attempt should remain, given its aptness as a bridge to a dramaturgical arc.)

‘We’re not going to live here any longer.’ Mum fiddles with the ignition. ‘I just need . . .’ The era of the Murderer as a father is almost over – Andrev’s mother has decided they’re moving out. But first they need to leave and the Translator has to deal with that…

You see, the car won’t start. In the exchange that follows, the Murderer uses the Swedish term ‘tjåk’, in turn puzzling the Translator. Turns out it means ‘choke’. Like on a car. An old car.

I’m old enough to have been in The Past, although I don’t really understand what a choke is or what I’d do with it. Fortunately for me, Retired GP (who retired early to study Swedish, naturally) and Retired Architect popped in for a coffee. In return for their caffeine, they told tales of yore, and most crucially what people used to shout when their car wouldn’t start.

Translation problem solved. More or less.

”Okej”, ropar Mördaren. ”Stryp tjåken och trampa plattan i mattan.”
”Stryp dig själv”, väser mamma och ställer sig på gaspedalen.

‘Okay,’ the Murderer calls. ‘Now no choke and put your foot down.’
‘I’ll choke you,’ Mum hisses, putting her foot on the accelerator.

In the original, the Murderer urges Andrev’s mum to ‘stryp’ the choke (strangle, as in cut off) and her muttered retort is that he should strangle himself. We don’t strangle chokes in English (is that a tautology?). And courtesy of Retired GP, I was now more comfortable in what we would say. Happily, the word ‘choke’ lends itself to an alternative solution, as you can see above.

My translation of “Bloody Awful in Different Ways” is just one reading of many possible readings of the fantastic Swedish novel titled “Jävla karlar” by Andrev Walden. My approach was led by certain expectations from the commissioners (at first Andrev’s foreign rights agents, later my London publisher) and conventions in the world of fiction. But it’s also led by my own conscious and unconscious biases, my taste, my sense of humour, which side of bed I got out of, and so on.

In a different set of circumstances and on a different day, my reading and thus my translation could have been very different. Any one of a hundred colleagues might have taken on the job instead and delivered their reading of the original. What’s exciting is that having delivered my draft, a whole new reading experience begins. My superb editor Ella noticed something that had passed me by.

In almost all instances, there is a nice pattern whereby nicknames don’t use the definite article (e.g. Little Cloud, Fish Lips, Cyclops…), apart from the nicknames for the fathers, which do (e.g. The Plant Magician, The Murderer…). I’d love to maintain this pattern if we can – is there an alternative nickname that might work for the Greek?

How hadn’t I noticed this? What a beautiful little pattern in a book marked by its patterns and repetitions. Two of Andrev’s playground pals (Greken and Spanjoren in the original Swedish, pencilled in my first delivered draft as ‘the Greek’ and ‘the Spaniard’) needed to change names. There followed brainstorming in the margins before we approached Andrev himself to ask for permission.

I have some doubts about the nicknames Moussaka and Paella but these doubts are mostly founded in the fact that I never once saw these boys eat moussaka or paella in real life. The readers however, won’t be troubled by this fact so let’s call them Moussaka and Paella.

Thus we secured Andrev’s blessing to make the change, and the Greek and the Spaniard became Moussaka and Paella (no definite article, see) in order to preserve that pattern. Personally, I was sorry my own tilt to name the Greek ‘Spanakopita’ had failed…

I often think of my translations as cover songs of the original works. Fortunately for you, I’m a far better translator than I am singer or musician.

When my translations get covered, it’s usually with a jacket (since the books would be cold otherwise). It may come as a surprise to some that translators are rarely involved in the design process. But it’s hardly strange, I don’t tend to ask the artist for help with my translation either… Sometimes I’ve seen early mock-ups, other times I’ve been one of the gang who gets to offer my vote on various options (along with the author, agent, and others at the publisher). Occasionally there’s been a request to brief an editor on the book so that they in turn can brief the designer. For Bloody Awful in Different Ways, my editor kept me in the loop on jacket plans – but I certainly wasn’t calling the shots.

The Swedish edition uses the 1591 Giuseppe Arcimboldo painting ‘Vertumnus’ – and I have to agree with the observation from narrator-Andrev that he’s ‘formidable’ to look at – cut into seven strips (for seven dads). The forthcoming German translation will also use the same jacket. The Dutch translation went another way with a stock photo of a kid leaping into the air and a bird flying above. The Norwegian translation (which will look very familiar to anyone who has seen the British cover) features attractive orange and green text on a cream background, with a sort-of-expressionist sort-of-self-portrait of the narrator (painted by the incredible artist Jesper Waldersten) experiencing one of his many nosebleeds. The Danish edition kept the portrait but ditched the cream surround. And so on. I’m sure that as more translations of this compelling novel come out in new territories, we’ll see yet more jacket designs (Italy, January 2026, I’m looking at you!).

What’s so great is that none of them are wrong – they all tie in so well to the story within.

The first time I saw the English translation in print was in the autumn of 2024 in a small run of makeshift proofs prepared using my word document (you’ll note that the cover is, ahem, text led). By the beginning of 2025 there was a fully formed jacket in a beautiful shade of turquoise with shades of orange and brown for the seven houses on top of it. By the spring, the decision had been made to switch it up with riff on the Norwegian edition using that same portrait and colour scheme.

I loved the old turquoise design with its seven homes. But I also love the switch to centring the protagonist and making the visual connection between his nosebleeds and the title. Most of all, I love that it wasn’t my decision to make (phew!).