Swedish Academy’s Interpretation Prize
Monica Aasprong and Jana Hallberg awarded the Swedish Academy’s Interpretation Prize for 2025. The prize is awarded for valuable interpretation of Swedish fiction into foreign languages.
The prize amount is 60,000 Swedish kronor each (about 5 500 Euros).
Monica Aasprong, born in 1969 and based in Stockholm, is a poet and translator, working primarily from Swedish into Norwegian.
From Swedish, Aasprong has translated works by, among others, Linda Boström Knausgård, Ann Jäderlund, Balsam Karam, Agnes Lidbeck, Karin Smirnoff, Therese Bohman, Kayo Mpoyi, UKON (Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson), as well as several novels, short stories, and plays by Sara Stridsberg.
In 2011, Aasprong was awarded the Norwegian Booksellers' Author Grant (Bokhandelens forfattarstipend).
Jana Hallberg, is born in 1967 and based in Berlin. She translates from Swedish and Danish into German.
After studies in Nordic and Slavic languages and literary theory in Berlin and Lund, Hallberg co-published DOGMA 95. Zwischen Kontrolle und Chaos (2001), which includes her translation of Lars von Trier’s diary from the filming of The Idiots (Idioterna). She also co-translated The Ingmar Bergman Archives (Regi Bergman ) by Paul Duncan and Bengt Wanselius into German (2008). Hallberg has translated over sixty plays, including works by Mattias Andersson, Majgull Axelsson, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, and Sara Stridsberg, as well as the libretto for Bo Holten’s opera Schlagt sie tot! (2019).
For the German edition of Lettre International, Hallberg has translated essays by, among others, Suzanne Brøgger, Peder Frederik Jensen, and Peter Englund. Other translations include Lunar manual by Ragnar Strömberg (2013), Sternenfall. Ein Triptychon by Lars Kleberg (2022), and Eine europäische Frau (Minnets spelplats) by Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss (2022).
Recipients of the prize in recent years are: Mudite Treimane and Sofiya Volkovetska (2024), Justyna Czechowska and Carmen Montes Cano (2023), Marianne Ségol-Samoy and Željka Černok (2022), Gisela Kosubek and David McDuff (2021), Katia de Marco (2020), Lukas Dettwiler (2019).