Enel Melberg

Enel Melberg (née Savioja; born 1943) is a Swedish author and translator. She made her debut as a novelist in 1977 with Modershjärtat, which dealt with cultural myths about motherhood through a semi-autobiographical and multi-generational narrative. She also translates Estonian to Swedish; she has translated works by Jaan Kaplinski, Tõnu Õnnepalu, and Heinrich Laretei, among others.

Enel Savioja was born in 1943 in Tallinn. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a mechanic. When her father was drafted into the German Army, his placement at a military depot allowed him to secretly arrange transport by boat across the Baltic Sea. Her family came to Sweden in 1944 as refugees, and lived in a number of refugee camps before settling in Tärby outside of Borås. She lived there until she was seven, when the family moved to Gamlestaden, Gothenburg.^[1] After graduating from secondary school in Gothenburg, she earned a bachelor's of arts at Lund University.^[2]

Melberg made her debut as a novelist in 1977 with Modershjärtat, which dealt with cultural myths about motherhood through a semi-autobiographical and multi-generational narrative.^[3] She followed this up in 1978 with Medeas systrar.^[4] Her next two novels were Nyckelpiga, flyg and Månbrunnen.^[5] In 1989, she published Namn ristat i vatten, a novel structured around the legend of Saint Etheldreda. Set in 7th-century England, the work draws on her life as a princess and later as a nun; the story is presented as an attempt to recover a manuscript about her life attributed to Wilfrid, the bishop who ordained her.^[6]

She translated the memoirs of Estonian politician Heinrich Laretei, which were published in Sweden as Ödets leksak in 1992.^[7] She translated an epistolary novel by Tõnu Õnnepalu, released in 1995 with a Swedish title of Gränsland.^[8] She also translated Ma armastasin venelast by Maimu Berg and Jää ja Titanic by Jaan Kaplinski from Estonian into Swedish; both were published in 1997.^[9] She translated another Kaplinski novel, The Same River, which was released in 2009.^[10] Her 2012 novel Separator was positively received by Ulf Eriksson in Göteborgs-Posten.^[11] The same year, she received the Swedish Academy Translator's Award.^[12] She wrote Det borde varit stjärnor (2014), a novel about Swedish poet Gustaf Fröding, told through the perspective of five women in his life.^[13]

She is married to literature professor Arne Melberg.^[1] They lived in Norway for about 20 years, but in 2007 moved to Gräsmark, Värmland. She has two children.^[14]

• Melberg, Enel (1977). Modershjärtat [Mother's heart] (in Swedish). ISBN 9789151811154.
• — (1978). Medeas systrar [Medea's sisters] (in Swedish). ISBN 9789151811949.
• — (1980). Nyckelpiga, flyg [Ladybug, fly] (in Swedish). ISBN 9789176380000.
• — (1981). Månbrunnen [Moon well] (in Swedish). ISBN 9789176380253.
• — (1989). Namn ristat i vatten [Name carved in water] (in Swedish). ISBN 9789177981886.
• — (2014). Det borde varit stjärnor [It should have been stars] (in Swedish). ISBN 9789186699239.