Popular Culture Review Volume 30, Number 1, Winter 2019 | Page 106

Popular Culture Review 30.1 • Winter 2019
War , Patriotism , and Nationality in the Norwegian and Swedish Translations of Cherry Ames
by Marcus Axelsson
ABSTRACT
Helen Wells ’ novels of the nurse Cherry Ames follow the protagonist through student nursing to her life as a practicing registered nurse . The books , featuring her military service , were soon translated , reaching Iceland , Norway , and Sweden . This article focuses on how the themes of war , patriotism , and nationality are translated in the Norwegian and Swedish translations of Cherry Ames . When comparing these two countries , it is notable that the literature for young girls was somewhat scarcer in Norway in the middle of the twentieth century , where this kind of book had not been highly prioritized during the war . This article also focuses on how the representations of war , patriotism , and nationality are translated into Norwegian and Swedish and how the same themes are depicted on the respective book covers . Bearing in mind that Norway participated in the war , and Sweden did not , it is interesting to investigate whether war and patriotism are rendered differently in the Norwegian and the Swedish target texts and whether the American patriotism is preserved or in some way “ domesticated ” to make the novels more Scandinavian .
Keywords : Helen Wells , Cherry Ames , nursing , Scandinavia , translations , Norway , Sweden , patriotism , military service
95 doi : 10.18278 / pcr . 30.1.6