Photo by Bengt Wanselius

Katzen Kapell & Sarah Lindh

performing Bodil Malmsten
Sweden

  

 

 

 

 

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Bodil Malmsten (born in 1944) is a Swedish poet and author who now lives in France. Since her breakthrough in 1984,
she is one of Sweden's most popular poets and in great demand to read her works, which also include novels and drama.

The English translation of her novel, Priset på vatten i Finistère (The Price of Water in Finistère, translated by Frank Perry),
was selected as a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. In the novel, having decided to pack up and leave her country of birth,
she recounts the story of settling into her new home in the Finistère département, in the northwest of France. It is told in
a series of vignettes about gardening, learning the language, dealing with French bureaucracy, and struggling with writer's
block. Bodil Malmsten has the gift of putting a glimpse of eternity in the everyday life.

She was awarded a doctorate honoris causa ad gradum (honorary degree) by the Faculty of Human Sciences at the
Mid-Sweden University in Östersund in 2006."

Sara Lindh has been in great demand in Swedish theater ever since her performance in West Side Story at Riksteatern,
Sweden’s leading nationwide theater. She has played several roles at Teater Galeasen in Stockholm directed by Rickard
Günther; among others in The Phantom Carriage (by Selma Lagerlöf), The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (by Jim Cartwright),
Civilisation (by Claus Beck-Nielsen); The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (by R.W.M. Fassbinder) at the Stadsteatern in
Gothenburg; Black Rider at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm; The Jungle Book at the Folkan Theater in Stockholm,
and Sally Bowles in Cabaret at Tyrol in Stockholm. She received the “Guldmasken” award for best female actor for her role as
the snake Kaa in The Jungle Book.

Sara Lindh has produced her own shows as well: You’ll see Koko-the Birdgirl (music and lyrics by Tom Waits), and Lulu
Pandora’s box (by Frank Wedekind), and has played in several films and television series, such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest,
and the Swedish movie Den Osynlige (The Invisible, directed by Joel Bergvall and Simon Sandquist).

Katzen Kapell is nothing but one of Sweden's most original and unusual bands. When the musicians come together they
create a sound that transports the listeners to unimaginable musical realms. Their original compositions evoke suburbian
melancholy, oriental romance and the Rounding of the Belly in a tango. Every instrument and sound that you could never
imagine in combination, comes alive when the band plays their first notes and instills a dual sense of comedy and boldness.
website:www.myspace.com/katzenkapel
http://www.saralindh.se/ l

Far Away and All Alone

I’m in my garden in Finistère filling out change-of-address cards. It’s an afternoon at the
beginnning of September 2000, a soft haze over the countryside. The Atlantic is breathing tides and
seaweed, the reassuring sound of the warning buoy like an owl.
I live in Finistère beacause I’ve moved here. It wasn’t by chance; for a woman of experience
there’s no such thing as chance.
Sleep with open eyes and you shall find.
A couple of month’s, that’s all it took. I left the country I’d lived in for fifty-five years, the time
had come. Drunk on freedom I drove away; I wasn’t looking, but I found Finistère. Not far from
Brest I felt I was getting close and then it wasn’t long before I was standing in front of the parcel of
paradise that is mine.
In the same way that there’s a partner for every person, there’s a place. All you have to do is
find your own among the billions that belong to other people, you have to be awake, you have to
choose.
My place lies where the land comes to an end in Europe - fin des terres, finis terrae - Finistère.

Så långt borta och alldeles ensam

Jag sitter i min trädgård i Finistère och fyller i adressändringskort. Det är eftermiddag i början av
september år tvåtusen, milt dis över landskapet. Atlanten andas tidvatten och tång. Varnings-bojens
trygga läte som en uggla.
Jag bor i Finistère för att jag har flyttat hit. Det är ingen slump, det finns ingen slump för en
erfaren kvinna.
Den som finner sover med öppna ögon.
Ett par månader, längre tid tar det inte. Jag lämnade landet där jag levt i femtiofem år, det var
dags. Berusad av frihet körde jag, sökte inte men fann Finistère. Inte långt från Brest började det
brännas och sen dröjde det inte länge innan jag stod inför den bit av paradiset som är min.
På samma sätt som det finns en partner för varje människa, finns det en plats. Det gäller bara att
hitta sin bland de miljarder som är någon annans, det gäller att vara vaken, det gäller att välja.
Min plats ligger där jorden tar slut i Europa - fin des terres, finis terrae - Finistère.

(From The Price of Water in Finistère, first published in 2001, translated to english by Frank Perry)