Erik Mesterton

Erik Mesterton (4 October 1903 – 10 January 2004) was a Swedish writer, literary critic and translator.

Together with poet Karin Boye he was editor for the influential culture magazine Spektrum in the 1930s (Modernist (T. S. Eliot was a favourite) and Freudian readings of literature were introduced. Mesterton lived in Gothenburg where he also did research on literature with scholars from the University of Gothenburg.^[1][2][3][4]

Mesterton's translation of Eliot's The Waste Land ("Det öde landet", 1932), made in collaboration with Karin Boye, and his essays in Spektrum was widely influential on Swedish 20th century literature.^[1]

Mesterton also translated from several other languages, including works by the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, and translated Swedish authors such as Pär Lagerkvist to English.^[1] In 1967, he re-translated Hamlet to Swedish in collaboration with Erik Lindegren.^[1]