Popular Culture Review Volume 30, Number 1, Winter 2019 | Page 110

War , Patriotism , and Nationality in the Nor wegian and Swedish Translations of Cherry Ames
Ames , and their domestic literary production of popular culture for young girls was low . There were therefore good conditions for import at this time .
This article focuses on how the themes of war , patriotism , and nationality are translated in the Norwegian and Swedish translations of Cherry Ames . Including all the Nordic countries in this study would have been interesting , but too extensive . This article therefore only focuses on Norway and Sweden . 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 . In the 1950s , there was hence a need for literature of this kind and it seems somewhat safe to conclude that this demand was a contributing factor as to why Cherry Ames , together with her peer Vicki Barr , and the somewhat younger Nancy Drew , were translated into the Scandinavian languages .
Although there was a need for this type of literature in postwar Scandinavia , and despite the fact that American popular culture products are easily imported into more peripheral European cultural systems , it took 8 years for the first book about Cherry Ames , Cherry Ames , Student Nurse , to be translated into Norwegian , and as much as 13 years for it to be translated into Swedish . One reason for the delay in this translation could be the literary status of the Cherry books . They were products of popular culture of low status ( Nygaard 54 ). In addition , they were novels for girls , and girls were not the strongest buyers in the market in postwar Scandinavia .
Translation research shows that Sweden is the most central and the most closed literary system in Scandinavia ( Lindqvist , “ Det skandinaviska översättningsfältet�finns det ” 77 , 79 ). This means that it is harder for literature from abroad
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