Peter Sandström

Peter Sandström's Autumn Apples is a masterpiece of understatement, a brilliantly laconic portrait of the sad vicissitudes of life.

This collection of short stories, awarded the Yle literary prize, comprises a series of portraits set in the 1950s–80s, and many of the characters are Finnish parents still suffering from the after-effects of the wars with Russia, or the next generation reared by such parents.

A curated list of recent gems in Swedish-language literary fiction, as reviewed in Swedish Book Review.

Written in a beautiful prose with a comic melancholy, Peter Sandström's Autumn Apples is the portrait of a middle-aged man reflecting on his past and trying to make sense of the present.
Translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner.