He left behind a long list of translations of works by Polish poets and novelists, including Adam Zagajewski, Zbigniew Herbert, Ewa Lipska, Witold Gombrowicz, Antoni Libera, Paweł Huelle and Nobel Prize winner Wisława Szymborska.
He also translated books of reportage by Ryszard Kapuściński and essays by Fr. Józef Tischner, making them available to Swedish readers.
Bodegård contributed a great deal to the promotion of Polish literature in Sweden.
Szymborska once said in an interview that she would never have won the Nobel Prize in Literature without Bodegård’s translations.
Bodegård’s contacts with Poland started with his visit to Warsaw in 1967 for a course for Polish language and literature students at the University of Warsaw.
In the 1980s, he lived in the southern city of Kraków teaching Swedish at the Jagiellonian University.
Bodegård’s honours included the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit for Poland and the Polish Book Institute’s Transatlantyk Award for translations of Polish literature.
(mk/gs)