Every year in september Gothenburg hosts Bok- & Biblioteksmässan, a book fair/trade show. I used to attend pretty much every year, because it was the best way to get all the information I could ever want about upcoming books. These days, of course, the Internet supplies that, and I get most of my books from on-line bookstores, so chasing bargains at the book fair is less of a draw. As a result, it has been some years since I attended, but today we decided that it could be worth a few hours of browsing. Initially, I had planned to go in on Friday, to leave today free for seeing off Ostindiefararen G
As usual, the book fair was incredibly busy, with a wide variety of books and comics on offer, as well as plenty of authors and other speakers making sure that the sound-level was somewhat numblingly high. After some general browsing, I decided to pay a visit to the representative for the Swedish literatry translator association, and chatted a bit about how to get into the business. Turns out that the course I attended actually arranged a seminar with invited translators for its most recent crop of students last year—too darn bad they didn’t do that for our class, as it no doubt would have provided some helpful information. In any case, he suggested I get in touch with one of their members in Gothenburg, to see if I could perhaps attend some of the meetings they hold there. You can’t actually become a member until you have a few published translations under your belt, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to develop some contacts. Later on (after watching a cookery demonstration and getting some free mango mousse), I also chatted with a representative for the non-fiction translators association, and she recommended that I become an associate member, since even those sometimes do get jobs through the network that they run.
All in all, a pretty entertaining and hopefully somewhat useful day too. And a nice break from Ibsen and Etruscans.