Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Robert Bly photoplay edition


I hosted a poetry reading tonight for Robert Bly. Afterwords, I asked him to sign a few books, including my copy of The Saga of Gosta Berling, by Selma Lagerlof. (Though not so much read today, Lagerlof was a popular Swedish writer at the turn of the 20th century and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. This novel, her most popular, was made into a film in 1924 by director Mauritz Stiller.)
I own this book because Greta Garbo is pictured on the cover. When I presented the book to Bly, he did not recognize it and said it was not his translation. I showed him his name inside the book. He acknowledged it was in fact his translation, but stated that he had never seen this edition before. It turns out this copy is an English language translation published in Sweden in 1982. I can't remember where I obtained this copy. Most likely, it was at a second hand book store in San Francisco or Berkeley.

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