Tiina Nunnally (born August 7, 1952) is an American author and translator of Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish literature. She also writes her own novels and young adult books.

Early life and education

Nunnally was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

She was an AFS exchange student to Århus, Denmark in 1969 and 1970. In a 2010 interview with Joanne Matzenbacher, Nunnally said that she learned to speak Danish during this time as an exchange student.

She received an MA in 1976 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a PhC from the University of Washington in 1979.

She is an affiliate instructor with the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington. won a Governor's Writers Award from the State of Washington in 1996. Since then two more of her novels have been published.

The Swedish Academy honored Nunnally in 2009 with a special award for her contributions to "the introduction of Swedish culture abroad".

Personal life

After 2002 she lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband Steven T. Murray, both full-time freelance literary translators. Murray died in 2018.

Selected translations

  • Early Spring by Tove Ditlevsen, being the first two volumes of The Copenhagen Trilogy (from Danish) (1985)<br>Reissued in 2021 with the third volume translated by Michael Favala Goldman.
  • Niels Lyhne by Jens Peter Jacobsen (from Danish) (1990)
  • American title: Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg (from Danish) (1993)<br>British title: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, under the pseudonym Felicity David (1993)
  • Kristin Lavransdatter I: The Wreath by Sigrid Undset (from Norwegian) (1997)
  • Kristin Lavransdatter II: The Wife by Sigrid Undset (from Norwegian) (1999)
  • Kristin Lavransdatter III: The Cross by Sigrid Undset (from Norwegian) (2000)<br>Kristin Lavransdatter I–III reissued in one volume in 2005.
  • Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum (from Norwegian) under the pseudonym Felicity David (2002)
  • He Who Fears the Wolf by Karin Fossum (from Norwegian) under the pseudonym Felicity David (2003)
  • Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (from Danish) (2004)
  • When the Devil Holds the Candle by Karin Fossum (from Norwegian) under the pseudonym Felicity David (2004)
  • Chronicler of the Winds by Henning Mankell (from Swedish) (2006)
  • Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Lauren Child (from Swedish) (2007)
  • The Complete and Original Norwegian Folktales of Asbjørnsen and Moe (from Norwegian) (2019)