In relation to English translations of Tomas Tranströmer’s poetry this paper examines two positions of the translator — the medium and the vandal. The positions are rendered from a discussion, later called the "Transtromer squabbles", that arose in 2007 in The Times Literary Supplement.

Through close readings of two Tranströmer poems, "Paret" and "Svarta vykort", with focus on formalistic factors like syllable and word count, rhythm and the texts graphical appearance, the paper shows that the opposition between the medium and the vandal shields some severe problems concerning translation.

The paper suggests that this opposition is related to a highly biased focus on the relation between the original and the translation. As an alternative it proposes an approach to translating from a reader´s perspective, focusing less on the act of translation and more on the act of communication.