I am a writer, editor, and literary translator working between Swedish and English. Born in Stockholm, Sweden, I have lived in Helsinki, Paris, and Montréal; New York City has been my home for more than a decade. I serve on the editorial board for Glänta, a Swedish magazine of arts and politics, and am an active member of SELTA, ALTA (where I am a two-time mentor in the Emerging Translators Mentorship Program), and the National Writers Union. I write on US issues in the Swedish press.
Awards and recognitions include:
2025 Barrios Book in Translation Prize shortlist for Judith Kiros’s O
2025 Dublin Lit Award longlist for Ia Genberg’s The Details
2024 International Booker Prize shortlist for Ia Genberg’s The Details
2023 Bernard Shaw Prize shortlist for Johanna Hedman’s The Trio
2017 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for Pooneh Rohi’s The Arab
translations
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Shade and Breeze by Quynh Tran
“A sumptuous and beautiful book … Tran’s prose [has] an intensely cinematic texture, one dominated by mood, atmosphere, and subtle shifts of shadow and light.” – Lucy Scholes, the Telegraph.
Out from Lolli Editions. -
O by Judith Kiros
Shortlisted for the 2024 Barrios Book
in Translation Award.
“O is unlike anything you have ever read. Judith Kiros’s astonishing talents manifest in language that holds the balance between beautiful and heartbreaking. This book, written by a brilliant and unflinching imagination, is quite simply a joy to read.” —Maaza Mengiste
Out from World Poetry. -
The Details by Ia Genberg
Shortlisted for the 2024 International
Booker Prize; longlisted for the 2025 Dublin Lit Award.
“Genberg’s marvelous prose is also a kind of fever, mesmerizing and hot to the touch.” – The New York Times Book Review.
Out from Wildfire (UK) and HarperVia (US). -
Antiquity by Hanna Johansson
“What Hanna Johansson offers in her electric, unsettling debut refuses all protection and dares the reader to do the same. Kira Josefsson’s translation is its own marvel, the language brimming with just-kept chaos until the keeping’s no longer possible.” – Anna Moschovakis, author of Participation.
Out from Catapult (US) and Scribe (UK).
original writing
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“Missnöjet mot Trump Behöver få en riktning”
“År 2025 hör jag folk prata om äggpriserna oftare än de pratar om Trump.”
Aftonbladet, mars 2025. -
“Ordet folkmord betyder inte längre någonting”
“Palestinierna har länge befunnit sig i detta gränsland där orden förlorar kontakten med verkligheten. Där ter sig världens demokratiska organ katastrofalt skröpliga. Allt fler av de som tar del av de bilder och videor som kommer ur Gaza står nu i samma gränsland.”
Aftonbladet, november 2024. -
“Hur botar man en politisk depression?”
“Vad ska man göra när organiserandet – trots Joe Hills uppmaning – inte biter på sorgen?”
Recension av Hannah Proctors Burnout i Under Strecket, Svenska Dagbladet, juli 2024. -
“AI-böcker kan aldrig bli bra litteratur”
“Ge fyra översättare en roman att jobba med och du kommer få fyra versioner av manus tillbaka.” Expressen, juni 2024.
editing / collaborations
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Åke Hodell’s The Marathon Poet, Translated by Fia Backström
I edited Fia Backström’s translation of Swedish avant-garde poet Åke Hodell’s The Marathon Poet, published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2020.
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Ghost Life – Hauntings in the Society of Spectres by Göran Dahlberg
I edited Göran Dahlberg’s chapbook essay “Ghost Life – Hauntings in the Society of Spectres”, published by Multimedijalni institut, Zagreb, as part of their 2020 Vectors of Collective Imaginations series.
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It Was Over When You Said What
Twelve writers furrow the texture of the months, days, and heartbeats when they realized it was over––and the swirl of contradictory emotions that come after the break. Do you believe in life after love? Edited with Rider Alsop and designed by Sara Duell. Published by Topos Press in 2017.
news
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Översättarna som satt svensk litteratur på världskartan
“The translators who’ve put Swedish literature on the world map”––interview (alongside Saskia Vogel) in Dagens Nyheter.
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Translators as labor organizers
Panel with Mayada Ibrahim and Alex Zucker on translators as artists and labor organizers at Columbia University’s MFA in creative writing.
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International Booker Prize Shortlist
Ia Genberg’s The Details is a finalist for the 2024 International Booker Prize!
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interview with debutiful
Translator interview with Debutiful occasioned by the publication of Hanna Johansson’s Antiquity.