Swedish – Bernard Shaw Prize

The Bernard Shaw Prize is a biennial award for translations into English of full length Swedish language works of literary merit and general interest. The winner is awarded £3,000 and a runner-up is awarded £1,000.

Named after the author and dramatist, whose Nobel Prize went towards a foundation for ‘the promotion and diffusion of knowledge and appreciation of the literature and art of Sweden in the British Islands’, the prize was  established in 1991 and is generously sponsored by the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation and the Embassy of Sweden in London.

The 2023 Bernard Shaw Prize has now closed for submissions. The next prize will open for submissions in 2025.


The 2023 Bernard Shaw Prize winner


Saskia Vogel for a translation of Strega
by Johanne Lykke Holm (Lolli Editions)


Saskia Vogel’s translation of this astonishing novel is truly virtuosic — the text comes alive in all its uncanny beauty as the English language is made to bend supplely and excitingly without ever losing its elasticity.

Nichola Smalley


The 2023 Bernard Shaw Prize runner-up


Jennifer Hayashida for a translation of Euphoria by Elin Cullhed (Canongate Books)

Transforming Cullheds voice — strongly influenced by Plath, yet still uniquely her own — cannot have been an easy feat for translator Jennifer Hayashida, but she does it so brilliantly.
Amanda Svensson


The 2023 Bernard Shaw Prize shortlist


Kira Josefsson for a translation of The Trio by Johanna Hedman (Hamish Hamilton)

John Litell for a translation of Nordic Fauna by Andrea Lundgren (Peirene Press)

Alice Menzies for a translation of We Know You Remember by Tove Alsterdal (Faber and Faber)

Alice E. Olsson for a translation of The Herd by Johan Anderberg (Scribe UK)

If you are interested in any of the books here please visit Bookshop.org.


2021 (Presented in 2022) 

Winner: Sarah Death for a translation of Letters from Tove by Tove Jansson ed. by Boel Westin and Helen Svensson. (Sort of Books)

Runner up: Sarah Death for a translation of Chitambo by Hagar Olsson. (Norvik Press)

Runner up: Amanda Doxtater for a translation of Crisis by Karin Boye. (Norvik Press)

Shortlisted:Neil Smith for a translation of Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. (Penguin Michael Joseph)

Deborah Bragan-Turner for a translation of To Cook A Bear by Mikael Niemi. (MacLehose Press)

Nichola Smalley for a translation of Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý. (And Other Stories)

2018 (presented 2019)

Winner: Frank Perry for his translation of Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs by Lina Wolff (And Other Stories)

Runner-up: Deborah Bragan-Turner for her translation of The Parable Book by Per Olov Enquist (MacLehose Press/Quercus)

Shortlistees: Sarah Death for her translation of Wilful Disregard be Lena Andersson (Picador, Pan Macmillan)

John Irons for his translation of Selected Poems by Lars Gustafsson (Bloodaxe Books)

2015 (presented 2016)

Winner: Thomas Teal for his translation of The Listener by Tove Jansson (Sort of Books)

Commended: Sarah Death for her translation of A Brief Stop on the Road From Auschwitz by Goran Rosenberg (Granta). 

2012

Winner: Robin Fulton for his translation of Chickweed Wintergreen (pictured far right) by Harry Martinson (Bloodaxe Books)

Commended: Peter Graves for his translation of The Beauty and the Sorrow by Peter Englund (Profile)

2009

Winner: Thomas Teal for Fair Play by Tove Jansson (Sort Of Books)

Runner up: Tiina Nunnally for The Story of Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist (Harvill Secker)

2006

Winner: Sarah Death for Snow by Ellen Mattson ( Jonathan Cape)

Runner up: Tom Geddes for Hash by Torgny Lindgren (Duckworth)

2003

Winner: Sarah Death for The Angel House by Kerstin Ekman (Norvik Press)

Runner up: Tom Geddes for Sweetness by Torgny Lindgren (Harvill)

2000

Winner: Anna Paterson for The Forest of Hours by Kerstin Ekman (Chatto & Windus)

Highly Commended: Sarah Death for Money by Victoria Benedictsson (Norvik Press)

1997

Winner: Michael Robinson for August Strindberg Selected Essays by August Strindberg (CUP)

1994

Winner: David McDuff for A Valley in the Midst of Violence by Gösta Agren (Bloodaxe)

1991

Winner:Tom Geddes The Way of a Serpent by Torgny Lindgren (Harvill)

Alison Flood

Alison Flood

Alison Flood is comment and culture editor at New Scientist. She is the Observer’s thriller columnist, and was previously books writer for the Guardian. She has judged prizes including the British Book Awards and the Costa first novel prize.

Nichola Smalley

Nichola Smalley

Nichola Smalley is a translator of Swedish and Norwegian literature. Her translation of Andrzej Tichý’s Wretchedness won the 2021 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize, and was nominated for the International Booker and Bernard Shaw Prizes, and her translation of Amanda Svensson’s A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2023. She has a PhD in the use of slang in contemporary Swedish and English literature, and worked in publishing for many years. She lives in London.

Amanda Svensson © Robin Rådenman

Amanda Svensson

Amanda Svensson is a Swedish author of five novels, and literary translator from English to Swedish. Her novel A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding was published by Scribe in 2022 (translated by Nichola Smalley) and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2023. Her latest novel Själens telegraf (The Telegraph of the Soul) was published in Sweden in August 2023.

2023

What an incredible line-up we have ended up with for this year’s shortlist – it is testament to the breadth and depth of Swedish literature today, ranging from a stunningly atmospheric crime novel to an account of the covid-19 pandemic in Sweden that reads like a thriller. All six are elegant and eloquent, insightful and compelling. Reading only in English, my comment about the quality of the translations is simply that these books didn’t feel translated – there was never a moment when a jarring note threw me out of the narrative.
Alison Flood, 2023 Bernard Shaw Prize judge

Embassy of Sweden

The Embassy of Sweden in London is led by Ambassador Mikaela Kumlin Granit and is tasked with representing Sweden and the Swedish government in the United Kingdom.

The Embassy’s Cultural Affairs department promotes Swedish culture in the United Kingdom, including literature, art, dance, music, film and theatre, as well as works to establish cultural links and collaboration between the countries. The department is led by Cultural Affairs Counsellor.