Swedish - Bernard Shaw Prize - The Society of Authors

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 2025 Bernard Shaw Prize has now closed for submissions.

The 2025 Bernard Shaw Prize shortlist

Agnes Broomé for a translation of Collected Works: A Novel by Lydia Sandgren (Pushkin Press)

Elizabeth Clark Wessel for a translation of The Eighth House: A mother, A murder, An obsession by Linda Segtnan (Ithaka Press, Bonnier Books UK)

Fiona Graham for a translation of The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow: The Forced Displacement of the Northern Sámi by Elin Anna Labba (University of Minnesota Press)

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

Saskia Vogel for a translation of Caesaria by Hanna Nordenhök (Héloïse Press)

Saskia Vogel for a translation of The Singularity by Balsam Karam (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

“This shortlist echoed with ideas, characters and cultures that were both enthralling and unexpected. Through the easiness of the text, these translators enabled us to see inside societies that are not our own, making us not only reflect upon them, but on ourselves. Through fiction, memoir and poetic prose, they challenged my preconceptions of Sweden and its peoples. The shortlist isn’t only a credit to these individual translators, but the power and importance of translation to shake us up and make us think.”

Dea Birkett, 2025 Bernard Shaw Prize judge

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With thanks, the judges for the 2025 Bernard Shaw Prize are:

Dea Birkett:

Dea Birkett is an award-winning writer and journalist, author of seven books including Serpent in Paradise (about her time on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific), Spinsters Abroad (‘subtle, acute, fascinating’ Sunday Times), Jella. A Woman At Sea (winner Somerset Maugham Award) and Off the Beaten Track. Three Centuries of Women Travellers (with National Portrait Gallery). Dea was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Brighton. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Dea received a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship to run away and join the circus. It was a life changing experience. She has been running away ever since. She lives on Achill Island in Mayo, in London and on the road as ringmaster at Circus250.

Kate Lambert:

Kate Lambert has taught English in the Finnish Arctic Circle, taught legal translation on the MA at the University of Surrey, and has been translating full-time for over two decades. Her work includes translating fiction and non-fiction books from Swedish and Finnish, as well as texts for museums and exhibitions, company histories, dance reviews and knitting books. Published translations include Tapio Koivukari’s Iceland 1615, a YA novel about a Basque whaler, Ebba Witt-Brattström’s Love/War, and Per T Ohlsson’s biography of Albert Bonnier.

Tom Geddes:

Tom Geddes, himself winner of the inaugural Bernard Shaw Prize, one-time university teacher and long-term Scandinavian and German specialist at the British Library, was a freelance literary translator from Swedish, Norwegian and German, now retired into reading rather than writing.

2023 (presented in 2024)

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

Runner-up: Jennifer Hayashida for a translation of Euphoria by Elin Cullhed (Canongate Books)

Shortlisted:

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)

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)

Embassy of Sweden

The Embassy of Sweden in London is led by Ambassador Stefan Gullgren and represents Sweden and the Swedish government in the United Kingdom.

The Embassy’s Cultural Affairs Department promotes Swedish arts and culture in the United Kingdom, including literature, visual arts, music, film, performing arts and the creative industries, as well as works to establish cultural links and bilateral collaboration between the countries.

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