Bio

Meritxell Salvany Balada holds a degree in English at the University of Barcelona (1993), where she also studied Swedish Language I-III. Between 1983 and 1986, she obtained her diplomas in French (Institut Français de Barcelona) and Italian (Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Barcellona). Thanks to the Swedish Institute, she studied Swedish (I-II-III) at different Folkhögskolor (1989–95), and Nordic literatures at the University of Stockholm (1996–1997). She has translated around eighty novels and children’s books from Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic into Catalan. Between 1995 and 2015, she combined translation with research management at institutions such as the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (UB). During the 2004-2005 academic year, she taught Swedish II/III also at the UB. At present she works full time as a literary translator. In recent years, she has translated, amongst others, works by Maj Sjöwall, Elin Cullhed, Maria Parr, Linn Ullmann, Erlend Loe, Jon Fosse, Dorthe Nors and Arndís Þórarinsdóttir.