JRR Tolkien's second-rate prose

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Originally Posted by Lalaith

However, I've never read Ivo Andric so I don't feel in a position to make a final judgement!
Oh and 'diktning' is more about 'poetic creation' than storytelling, my Swedish source has just told me....I'm just asking him if the bit about the bad translation could be true...

Yep, your friend is quite right. "Diktning" is a broad description of the creation of (often written) fiction, whether prose or poem, and not specifically "storytelling".

Here's the quote from the original article:

”resultatet har dock icke i något avseende blivit diktning av högsta klass”.

and my translation:

"the result, however, is not by any measure of the highest quality".

The phrasing actually suggest that Österling started out with some praise for Tolkien but that this was edited out, leaving only a curt dismissal.