On Tuesday, April 2, the English-language translation of the book Airmail: The Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Tranströmer will be published. Join the Department of Scandinavian Studies at 7:00 p.m. for readings from Airmail with Minnesota poet Robert Bly and professor emeritus Roland Thorstensson, who will read Tomas Tranströmer’s words in Swedish.
The event is free and open to the public; it will take place at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. Seating is limited and reservations are required; please call 612-871-4907 to reserve a space.
Tomas Tranströmer is one of Sweden’s most important poets, whose books have been published for the English-speaking world by Graywolf Press. In 2001 Graywolf Press published Tranströmer’s The Half- Finished Heaven, translated by Robert Bly. In 2011 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden.
Robert Bly is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, numerous books of nonfiction, and is an acclaimed editor, translator, and activist. He received the 1968 National Book Award in poetry. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Thomas R. Smith is the editor of Airmail: The Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Tranströmer. He is also the author of six books of poems, most recently The Foot of the Rainbow.
Roland Thorstensson is Professor Emeritus in Scandinavian Studies at Gustavus Adolphus College. He currently serves on the board of the American Swedish Institute.
Jeffrey Shotts is Senior Editor at Graywolf Press, where he edits and curates the poetry list.
Just a minor correction. Roland will read Tranströmer’s letters in English ( and only a few of them, of course). With the exception of some of his first letters to Bly, in the mid-1960s, Tranströmer wrote in English. When the two poets juggled translations, which they often did, they used both languages of course. A slightly shorter version of “Airmail” was published in Sweden in 2001. Bly’s and Tranströmer’s letters were then translated into Swedish.