I have read a lot of Astrid Lindren's books in my day, as many of her books were translated into Latvian from Swedish, and provided Latvian kids with exciting adventures rarely found in kids books by Latvian authors. My favorite character was Pippi Longstocking. After reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, where the main character is compared to Lindgren's masterdetective Kalle Blomkvist, I had to find this book.
Though tame by today's standards, Lindgren still weaves a good tale of a curious boy (with his name Americanized to Bill Bergson), a bit bored on summer vacation, looking for suspicious characters. He finds one in the neighbor's Uncle Einar. Playing detective he get his friends Anders and Eva-Lotta into serious trouble, but you know they get the crooks in the end.
Reading these translations, I keep wondering about the choices translators make. Why change Kalle Blomkvist to Bill Bergson. Is Blomkvist too foreign a name, but Bergson a Swedish name that English and American kids could handle? In my present state of wanting everyone to become more familiar with other countries and cultures, I would hope that original names would be retained.
Of course I had to check out Lindgren in our literary resources, and found that she was amazingly prolific, having written over 70 books between 1944 and 1997. She died in 2002. Many have been produced into movies. Pippi has been so popular, that her books have been translated into more than sixty languages from Arabic to Zulu. Turns out Pippi was a character that Lindren invented when telling stories to her daughter. When first published, readers loved it, educators were critical about this free spirited girl who didn't care much for authority. Early feminists were influenced by reading about Pippi, seeing new possibilities. Lindgren was also trying to provide non-violent reading for kids. No wonder she is considered a national treasure or "premier export product" according to the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
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