Harriet Alfons (1923–2015)

Harriet Alfons, née Josephson, was born in Uppsala into a prominent Swedish Jewish family. Her father Ragnar Josephson was a well-known art historian at Lund University and a member of the Swedish Academy. Harriet graduated from the Cathedral School in Lund and studied the history of literature, English, and the history of religion at the University, taking her B.A. degree in 1944. The following year, she married Sven Alfons, an artist, art critic, and author, and settled with him in Stockholm, where the couple moved in literary circles. Harriet began her publishing career as an editor at Natur & Kultur. She helped start the company's children’s literature division. After several further years as editor at the publishing houses Albert Bonniers Förlag and Forum, Harriet transferred in 1955 to Svensk Lärartidnings Förlag. Her first assignment there was the Barnbiblioteket Saga, a literary series for children. She managed the Saga for the longest period of her professional life – a total of 18 years. In 1973, she returned to Natur & Kultur to manage another start-up, the Min nya skattkammare series, which she directed until 1988. After her retirement, Harriet Alfons continued to publish anthologies in collaboration with her colleague Margot Henrikson.

Harriet also had an extensive career as a translator, with nearly 100 titles, mostly from English. Her work ranged from children's books to Nobel Prize-winning authors, although she especially enjoyed women authors such as Doris Lessing, Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, and Edith Wharton, and was responsible for popularizing these writers with the Swedish public. During the 1970s, she translated a number of works on child psychology.