Cecilia Hansson (born in 1973) lives in Stockholm, Sweden as a poet, translator and freelancing journalist. 2019, she received the prestigious Sorescu Prize, for her authorship.
Hansson has a background as a radio presenter at Sveriges Radio (The National Radio in Sweden), has a Master in German Literature and is a board member of Swedish PEN.
For the past several years, Cecilia Hansson has travelled between Stockholm and Vienna, Bucharest and Budapest, to understand the increasingly harsh cultural climate in the region. In 2017 Hopplöst, men inte allvarligt – konst och politik i Centraleuropa (Hopeless, But Not Serious – Arts and Politics in Central Europe) was published – a book about survival, resistance, censorship, and freedom in a region that’s highly topical, with political developments that have high importance for the world at large.
The book contains interviews with 18 of Europe’s leading intellectuals, from Herta Müller to Péter Nádas to Marina Abramović, among others, and speaks with them about the conditions necessary for creative work, as well as larger questions like the meaning of art, and the ability of the artist to affect the public debate. Through deep and intimate interviews, Hansson touches on questions like the aftermath of communism and fascism, the ineluctability of art, and the fact that neither stability nor safety can be taken for granted in Europe today. The result is a book that offers a unique view on the region, and which keeps returning to one question: What responsibility does an artist have to stand up for what she or he believes in?
In 2019, Au pair – a novel about an obsession, was published. Au pair circles around the relationship between failure, desire and creativity, about becoming one self and becoming an artist. In connection with this, Cecilia Hanssons three collections of poetry was re-released, with a newly written introduction by the famous author Kristian Lundberg. This year, she also received the prestigious Sorescu Prize.
The translation of Monika Rincks zum fernbleiben der umarmung (translated together with Anna Lindberg) was nominated to Translation of the year in 2012.
In 2021, Snö och potatis – a novel about motherhood and sorrow – was published.
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