The Season

There seem to have been a larger than usual number of literary receptions and get-togethers organized by the the various Nordic embassies in London recently. First it was the launch of Neil Kent's Helsinki: A Cultural and Literary History at the Finnish embassy. Then there was a reception at the Norwegian embassy for Merete Morken Andersen and her book Oceans of Time, translated by Barbara Haveland, and Monday sees the launch at the Swedish ambassador's residence of Tom Geddes's translation of Torgny Lindgren's novel Hash. As I attend these events, which form an opportunity for renewing old acquaintances and catching up with translators' gossip, I sometimes wonder what the real reasons are for these rather rarefied cultural events being held in the workaday and mostly trade-and-commerce oriented surroundings of London's diplomatic circuit, but can only conclude that the embassies consider that it all adds to the raising of the cultural profile of their respective countries, not all of which are as well-known to educated Britons as they perhaps ought to be.