Reviews

Kristina Appelqvist has been described as the queen of a type of whodunnit in which the various pieces of the puzzle are carefully crafted and assembled as the novel progresses.

With her feminist dystopia, Karam joins acclaimed authors such as Johannes Anyuru and Jonas Hassen Khemiri in carving out space for a new speculative fiction emanating from Sweden – one that renews the genre by foregrounding questions of diversity and race in a place so often idealised as a social utopia. ​

A simmering portrait of a soured sibling relationship, and a richly layered contemplation of memory and the imprints left by childhood trauma.

Nicolas de Condorcet, mathematician, philosopher and a member of the first government formed during the French Revolution, championed the Enlightenment ideals of intellectual and religious liberty, rationality, and increased economic freedom.

In a powerful story of loss, Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde asks the difficult questions.

Just how much is likely to have changed between two people who have had no contact with each other for twenty years? Why would one of them suddenly arrive on the other’s doorstep after such an absence anyway?

Far from being a typical whodunnit, the novel explores the buying of sex – illegal in Sweden – from three very different angles.

In Hemmet, a horror novel set in a care home, Mats Strandberg sidesteps clichés to produce a haunting tale of dementia and the greatest fear of all; losing control of ourselves.

Markus Heilig, a psychiatrist turned neuroscientist, has set himself an ambitious project: to explain sex differences in brain structure and function and to show what happens in brains – not just the human one – at different stages of development.

The boy is not her son, and she calls him ‘my boy’ because ‘she took him’ and ‘because he was in my power’.

‘Even during lunch the women and men sit in different sections of the restaurant, with screens between them. It is considered ugly for a woman to open her mouth in public. And that is not only to eat, but also to speak.’

A collection of six interconnected short stories by Danny Wattin. Sharp and entertaining.

It rings true on so many levels, and women especially will relate very personally to this intimate story of the painful transition from girlhood to womanhood. ​

Hannah Lutz's Wild Boar questions ‘[...] which species, which animals and which people are welcome where? And who decides that?’

The colours may be black and white, but Mattson shows us in beautifully well-weighed language that life seldom is.

Mannerheim’s story is the story of Finland and, as well as being an account of one man’s character and career, the book makes an accessible and engaging introduction to Finland’s twentieth-century history.

‘Always the same question when it comes to people. Whose will was stronger?’

A skilled wordsmith and nature writer, Niemi juxtaposes lyrical pastoral beauty with the grotesque and the hideous. He is able to enchant, lull and repulse in equal measure. This is writing that will make you think.