Originally published as a book review on Amazon, but since removed. I haven´t bothered edited the text.
Does Amazon sell literally everything?
This is actually K.V. Zettersténs Swedish translation (or "interpretation") of the Koran. First published in 1917, it was the only Swedish translation for a long time. Muslims didn't like it, since Zetterstén had appended a critical introduction and equally critical notes. They had to wait until the 1990's for an "official" translation, duly approved by the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, complete with apologetic and quasi-modernist notes (so I suppose Wahhabis are still dissatisfied).
In a sense, I believe Zetterstén has been given a bad rap. Among scholars, his translation of the Koran is considered to be one of the best into a Western language. Personally, I can't read Arabic, let alone the Arabic of the Koran, but after looking into the matter, I suspect the scholars are right.
Zetterstén wanted the Swedish readers to get a feel for how the Koran comes across to an Arab audience. Since the Koran is written in a very archaic Arabic, he translated it to a somewhat archaic and pseudo-sacral Swedish. The Koran is also notorious for being extremely difficult to understand, due to its elliptical style and strange grammar. This, too, has been rendered into Swedish, making the translation just as difficult to entangle as the original!
I'd say K.V. Zetterstén was a genius.
If anyone really managed to sift through his translation, is perhaps another matter entirely. But yes, it's still available in paperback here in Sweden...
PS. Amazon also sells the modern translation, "Koranens budskap". Heresy hunt, anyone?
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