Semi-peripheral Blessings: the Swedish position in the world literary landscape

Semi-peripheral Blessings: the Swedish position in the world literary landscape

This seminar explores the privileges of writing and publishing in a language that is neither central nor peripheral. It discusses several different literary genres, translational patterns and the literary Nobel Prize as a force of consecration – not only of international authors, but also of its host culture.

The event is part of the EUTOPIA seminar series "World literature from the (semi-)periphery" and is organized in collaboration with the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg (CERGU) . 

Paul Tenngart is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Lund University, Sweden. His has published several monographs and articles on Swedish and French poetry, politics and ideology, prose translations from Swedish to English, translation patterns from and to semi-peripheral positions, Anthropocene fiction and the literary Nobel Prize. His latest books are a comprehensive history of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Det litterära Nobelpriset. Historien om världslitteraturens största utmärkelse (The Literary Nobel: the History of the World’s Greatest Literary Prize, Bonniers 2025), and the anthology Literary Translation and the Nobel Prize: Cultural Prestige, International Consecration and Translational Practice (edited with Karl Ågerup, Routledge: London 2026).