Matson, Alex

Alexander Matson was a Finnish novelist, essayist, critic, artist, and bilingual translator. He was born in Koivisto in 1888, the son of Matias Matson, a seaman and merchant, and Judit Torckel. The Matsons moved soon to England. At the age of 14, Matson finished his school and started to help his father, who had bought a tailor’s shop in Hull. After contracting tuberculosis, he spent some time in Germany in a sanatorium, and returned then to Finland. From 1905 to 1909 Matson worked at an export firm. In Viipuri Matson planned a career as a writer or an artist, during this period he began to draw, and went to study art in Hull. Matson had his first exhibition in Helsinki and subsequently participated to several joint exhibitions. From 1914 he worked as an artist. During the Finnish Civil war (1917-18) he was an art teacher. In 1922 Matson married the writer and playwright Kersti Bergroth, who began writing in Swedish but changed to Finnish. After spending some time in London, where Matson was employed at the Embassy of Finland in London, they bought a house in Tyrisevä in the Karelian Isthmus.

In the 1930s Matson was asked to translate James Joyce’s Ulysses, but refused, saying that it was an impossible task. The poet Pentti Saarikoski took up the challenge in the 1960s and made a superb translation. Matson’s first translation from Finnish into English was Aino Kallas’ collection of Estonian tales, The White Ship, foreword by John Galsworthy. Matson knew Aino Kallas personally. After the war Matson translated into Finnish such authors as John Steinbeck, James Joyce, and William Faulkner, and into English works by Aleksis Kivi and F. E. Sillanpää. Matson’s translation of Kivi’s Seven Brothers and of Sillanpää, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1939, has been severely criticized. Matson lived long periods of his life in Tampere, where he became the central figure of a literature group, which had Lauri Viita, Väinö Linna and Mirkka Rekola as members. Throughout his life, he retained a certain British formality in social interactions and spoke Finnish with a slightly foreign accent. He died on November 29, 1972.

Laing, Samuel

Samuel Laing (1780 – 1868) from Papdale in Orkney was a Scottish travel writer. He published descriptions of the Scandinavian countries (Journal of a Residence in Norway during the Years 1834, 1835, and 1836, 1836 and A Tour in Sweden in 1838, 1839) and Prussia (Notes of a Traveller, 1842). In 1844 he published his 3 volume edition of Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway.

Scudder, Bernard John

Bernard Scudder (1954-2007) was born in Canterbury and read English Literature at York University. He went to Iceland in 1977 where he studied the Icelandic language at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík. He was a member of the editorial team that produced the Complete Sagas of Icelanders in English translation, in 1997, which included the translations of some 30 native English speakers. He translated both Egil’s Saga and Grettir’s Saga and was responsible for editing the notoriously problematic and difficult skaldic poetry from all the submissions. His lyric translation of The Prophecy of the Seeress (Völuspá) appeared in 2001.

His renditions of a number of prize winning novels were published in England by Mare’s Nest Publishing including Thor Vilhjálmsson’s Justice Undone in 1995 [Grámosinn glóir,1986, Nordic Council Literary Prize 1988], Guðbergur Bergsson’s The Swan in 1997 [Svanurinn 1991, Icelandic Literary prize 1991] and Einar Már Guðmundsson’s Angels of the Universe in 1995 [Englar alheimsins 1993, Nordic Prize 1995]. He has more recently been translating the award winning crime novels of Arnaldur Indriðason including Silence of the Grave, Vintage Books 2006 [Grafarþögn 2002, winner of the CWA Golden Dagger] and The Draining Lake, Harvill Secker 2007 [Kleifarvatn 2004, winner of the CWA Golden Dagger]. Scudder’s poetry translations can be found in Brushstrokes of Blue (1994), Voices from across the Water (1997), Cold was that Beauty … (2002) and Fire & Ice: Nine poets from Scandinavia and the North (2004). An anthology of his poetry translations, Icelandic Poetry (ca. 870-2007), is due in 2012. Composures, a volume of his own poetry, was published in England in 1996.

Paull, Susannah Mary

Susannah Mary Paull (1812-88), also sometimes transcribed as Mrs. Henry H. B. Paull (Henry Hugh Beams Paull), was a translator of children's books. She published Andersen's and Grimm's Fairy Tales in English in 1872.

Smith, Lytton

Lytton Smith is the author of two books of poems, The All-Purpose Magical Tent (Nightboat 2009) and While You Were Approaching the Spectacle and Before You were Transformed by It (Nightboat 2012), and the translator of the Icelandic novels The Ambassador by Bragi Ólafsson (Open Letter 2010), Hér by Kristín Ómarsdóttir (Open Letter 2012) and Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller by Guðbergur Bergsson (2017).

He is Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at University of Plymouth and has been completing his dissertation on open field poetics and citizenship in post-1945 United States at Columbia University. Since 2005, he has worked in poetry publicity with individual authors and small presses, including Four Way Books, Persea Books, and Blind Tiger Poetry, a group which aims to find innovative ways to promote contemporary poetry. His poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, The Atlantic, The Believer, Boston Review, Tin House, Verse, Words Without Borders, and the anthology All That Mighty Heart: London Poems.

Noon, Alistair

Alistair Noon's translations from Russian and German include "The Bronze Horseman" by Alexander Pushkin (Longbarrow Press) and 16 Poems by Monika Rinck (Barque). A full-length collection of his translations of Osip Mandelstam is in preparation. His own poetry has been published in chapbooks from various small presses, most recently "Some Questions on the Cultural Revolution" (Gratton Street Irregulars). His first full-length collection, "Earth Records", is published by Nine Arches Press.