Obituary: Joan Tate

Translator who worked with Scandinavia's greatest writers
Joan Tate, who has died aged 77, was an outstanding and prolific literary translator. She only started in the early 1960s, but worked on more than 200 books from the Scandinavian languages. The list of authors she translated from Swedish was a roll-call of the major names in contemporary Swedish literature. Almost the same could be said of her work in the other Scandinavian languages.

Tate had the ability to get under the skin of a novel and to strike a rapport with the writer - becoming friends with the cream of contemporary Scandinavian writers.Of her many awards, the one she treasured most was from the Swedish Academy: typically, she used most of the money to finance the translation of novels she admired, but which had not found an English-language publisher.

Born into a schoolmaster's family in Tonbridge, Kent, Joan Eames used to claim her greatest achievements at school were sporting. In 1939 she began a three-week visit to Sweden, and found herself stranded by the outbreak of war. She learned Swedish by reading magazines, and took a series of jobs - she was especially proud of having qualified as a gymnastics teacher and physiotherapist before returning to England in 1943.

The next year she married Clive Tate, an agricultural adviser and conservationist, and they eventually settled in Shrewsbury with their son and two daughters.

In the postwar years she wrote books, mainly for children and young people, and developed an interest in puppet theatre, specialising in south-east Asian shadow theatre and writing a scholarly book on the subject, which was close to completion on her death.

It was easy to be scared stiff by Joan, but behind the daunting exterior was a kind, generous and hospitable personality. She held open house to authors, publishers, artists of all kinds, students, and, not least, translators. She was a founder member of the Swedish-English Literary Translators' Association (Selta), and especially liked to address students with a budding interest in literary translation. "Don't even think about it unless you can write," she would say. "And to write properly, you must read - not just in the foreign language, but more espe cially in English. Knowing the foreign language is only the first step, and a short one at that."

Students were particularly impressed when she produced the computer printout of her public lending right royalties: she explained she could estimate her annual earnings by standing at the top of her stairs, letting the printout unroll, and seeing how far down the hall the last page came to rest.

Her awards were invariably accompanied by thanks for her promotion of Scandinavian literature and culture. "I have never promoted anything," she replied. "I just translate books." But she knew what they meant, and was secretly proud.

She is survived by her husband and children.

Cleodie Mackinnon writes: In the late 60s and early 70s, bookshops were closing in most of the English provinces and Shrewsbury was no exception. Almost single-handed Joan Tate enlisted volunteers, negotiated a deal with a benevolent wholesaler, and secured a room (in the building shared by the local arts centre, adult education classes and university extra-mural department).

The bookshop beat conventional rivals to win a national prize for its speciality on environmental issues, became a meeting place for Shrewsbury's literati, and kept the book-buying habit alive in the town until independent bookshops and Waterstone's opened there.

Three of the volunteers later opened their own bookshops - typical examples of Joan's enabling and liberating powers.

 Joan Tate, translator, writer and publisher's reader, born September 23 1922; died June 6 2000