Enel Melberg

Novels

Short stories

Enel Melberg (née Enel Savioja, 21 September 1943) is a Swedish-Estonian writer and translator.

Melberg was born in Tallinn. In 1944, she fled from Estonia to Sweden with her parents during the Second World War before the Russian occupation. She studied at Lund University and Stockholm College of Education from which she graduated in 1973 as a Swedish philologist. From 1973–1991, she worked as a Swedish language, drama and philosophy teacher at Stockholm Adult Gymnasium. Since 1990, Melberg has lived alternately in Sweden and Norway.

She writes in Swedish for children, young people and adults and is a member of both the Swedish and Norwegian Writers’ Unions. The themes of her work include feminism, social justice and her Estonian origin. Melberg’s first novel Modershjärtat (‘Mother’s Heart’) was published in 1977 and is her best-known book. It dealt with mother-daughter relationships, which was a new topic in Swedish literature then. It was followed by the novels Medeas systrar (‘Medea’s Sisters’, 1978), Nyckelpiga flyg (‘Fly, Ladybird!’, 1980), Månbrunnen (‘Moon Well’, 1981), Namn ristat i vatten (‘A Name Hewn in Water’, 1988), Kärlekens arkeologi (‘The Archeology of Love’, 1990), Den elfte dagen (‘The Eleventh Day’, 1992), Det djur som inte finns (‘The Non-existent Animal’, 2007), Allt vi vilja bli. Herr Brecht och hans kvinnor (‘Everything We Want to Be. Herr Brecht and His Women’, 2009) and I tid och evighet. En operaroman (‘In Time and Eternity. An Opera Novel’, 2010). Melberg’s latest novel so far, the eleventh, is Separator (2012). She has also published travelogues. Her books have been translated into German, Danish, Norwegian and Estonian.

Melberg has translated Estonian literature, including the works of Hella Wuolijoki, Marie Under, Betti Alver, Helga Nõu, Maimu Berg, Jaan Kross, Jaan Kaplinski, Emil Tode, Heinrich Laretei and Margus Laidre, into Swedish.

She has twice received the Estonian Cultural Endowment’s annual prize for literary translation from Estonian into a foreign language: in 2007 for translating the works of Marie Under, Helga Nõu, Jaan Kross, Betti Alver and Hella Wuolijoki, and in 2023 for translating of Jaan Kross’s Kolme katku vahel (‘Between the Three Plagues’) I–IV into Swedish.

M. K. (Translated by I. A.)

Books in Estonian

Novels
Üheteistkümnes päev. Tallinn: Perioodika (Loomingu Raamatukogu), 1998, 160 lk.