2024:1

Welcome to this latest issue of Swedish Book Review, and a new crop of works that all deal with topics central to our humanity. Through settings that range from ancient forests to ships’ decks, city streets to magic mountains, these texts explore love, nostalgia and loss, how we interrogate philosophy and faith, and how we interact with nature, with culture, and with each other.

In translations, we present two works that evoke very different stages of childhood: Mikael Yvesand’s Hang City distils the dreaminess of long, languorous summers and the boredom of the pre-Internet age, while Aya Kanbar’s volcanic second collection of poetry Evening Street offers a heady and romantic ode to the teenage years.

Elsewhere in fiction, Magnus Florin reimagines philosopher René Descartes’ last voyage in the masterful Descartes’ Daughter, and celebrated journalist, author and activist Elin Wägner explores faith, superstition and evolving social mores in her previously untranslated 1931 short story ‘Old Wives' Meeting’.

In non-fiction, Lisa Röstlund’s incisive and wide-ranging Forestland shines a light on the at times devastating environmental impact of modern forestry practices, while in My Book World Kerstin Ekman enters into a dialogue with her own literary heroes, sharing insights gleaned from a lifetime of reading.

In features, Anna Maria Hellberg Moberg delves into the changing landscape of folk tales and the resurgence of storytelling traditions across Sweden, and in an illuminating interview Saskia Vogel shares some of her experiences of translating Johanne Lykke Holm’s Bernard-Shaw-Prize-winning Strega.

As ever, our reviews section highlights the breadth and depth of publishing in Sweden today, full of popular and prize-winning new releases in everything from fiction to biographies by established favourites and emerging voices alike. We also present the ever-important data on Swedish and Finland-Swedish books to be published in English translation in 2024.

We would like extend our sincere thanks to Swedish Literature Exchange for their support in producing this issue. We hope that you enjoy reading it.