Carl Gustaf Bjurström – un médiateur littéraire unique en Suède

Abstract

This article adresses the phenomenon of literary mediation as reflected in the mediating work of one particular person, Carl Gustaf Bjurström (1919-2001), a Swedish translator and promotor of French literature in Sweden and of the Nordic literatures in France during the second half of the 20th century. It focuses on the manifold activities of Bjurström in favour of French literature in Sweden. Its scope is essentially general in its efforts to provide some elements of answer to the question as to the nature of literary mediation as a phenomenon, while being at the same time special in trying to show the uniqueness of the work carried out by a particular mediator in the field of literary mediation.

Through a detailed study of the many aspects of the work of C.G. Bjurström in his different roles (author, translator, promotor, reader), the emerging picture is one of a person whose mediating work was decisive in order to make French literature read and appreciated in Sweden in the second half of the 20th century.