The novel by the Swedish writer Sara Lövestam Hjärta of Jazz is notable for its interesting composition: two layers of narration, the past and the present, are simultaneously intertwined in it. The first is represented by Alvar Svensson’s story of becoming a jazz musician. While the Second World War rages in the world, young Alvar goes to Stockholm to play music of African Americans. Against the background of his life, the author shows a comprehensive picture of the Swedish way of life and the development of a new and forbidden at that time musical direction. The love towards jazz becomes a bridge to the present, represented already by the story of schoolgirl Steffy, who is bullied by her peers and finds solace in music. The novel contains both a large number of expressive tropes, as well as a wide variety of national and cultural realias that reflect the peculiarities of Swedish life and mentality in different time periods. Realias are always a challenge for the translator, since they often do not have exact analogues in the target language. Consequently, the question regarding the specifics of their translation is relevant within the framework of modern linguistics. To a greater extent, the text contains toponyms (names of cities, towns, squares, streets) and ergonyms (names of clubs, organizations, cultural sites, creative unions). Together with the novel characters the reader gets the opportunity to walk along the streets of old Sweden, learn their history, look into clubs where forbidden jazz was played in the 1940s. At the same time, the places mentioned in the narrative are shown in a new way in the perception of a teenage girl, which allows the reader to build an image of already modern Sweden and its inhabitants. When translating realia, various techniques were used (transcription, transliteration, tracing, omission, generalization and specification) both in combination and separately to preserve and convey the national-cultural specifics in the target language.
