Our guest in March will be Petra Hesová – a Czech translator from Swedish. Together, we will discuss Sven Lindqvist’s book originally published in 1992: Exterminate All the Brutes. The recent publication of a translation (2022) further reinforces the text’s relevance in today’s world.
You can watch the live stream on Monday March 13th 2023 at 8PM on the Scandinavian house Facebook page, or later when it will be posted our YouTube Channel.
Exterminate All the Brutes (Czech translation Petra Hesová, published by Host, 2022) – The truth sometimes comes in the shape of various broken pieces laying everywhere around. And in order for us to see it properly, we must take a step back both in time and space. For this reason, Sven Lindqvist takes away on a journey through Sahara to capture the dark history of European imperialism and wealth. This fascinating combination of travel literature, essayism, and a historical fiction has so far been translated into twenty languages and caused widespread controversies over its ambition to uncover truth on the account of illuminating its personal – European – shame.
Sven Lindqvist (1931–2019) was a Swedish author, who during his lifetime has received numerous prices and literary awards. Furthermore, according to the Svenska Dagbladet list he ranks among the most prominent authors of Sweden. He has completed over thirty works: primarily essays, articles and travelogues. His international success is largely owed to precisely Exterminate All the Brutes (1992) and Nu dog du: Bombernas Arhundrade (A History of Bombing, 1999).
Petra Hesová is a Swedish and English translator, language teacher, songwriter, and a musician. Throughout her career she has translated over twenty books (including those of Ann-Helén Laestadius, Andrea Lundgren, Tina Frennstedt, Michael Hjorth & Hans Rosenfeldt, Pia Hagmar etc.) and published one crime fiction of her own. Her primary focus is on literature and music in the American South and Swedish North. Exterminate All the Brutes marks her most profound translation yet!
The partner of the Nordic Literary Salon Online is Czech Translators of the North – an association of translators of Nordic-language fiction into Czech.
The event is part of the Scandinavian House’s year-long project “Nordic Literature in the Heart of Europe 2023,” which is financially supported by Prague Municipality and the Ministry of Culture in the Czech Republic.
