Reviews

In Latvia, however, many people are constantly told they are Russians – however long they’ve lived there.

Such benign vagueness is probably the best policy for someone who lives under threat, not only from former potentially murderous co-religionists but also assorted security agencies (the Swedish included).

It may be difficult to believe that an academic linguist saved Sweden from the temptations of a terrifying Nazi-inspired solution to the economic problems of the 1920s and 30s.

Not only is the main character a girl, but the novel looks at other aspects of Viking life, particularly religion, literacy and social distinctions.

If this is all starting to sound like a combination of the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series, mixed with Nordic mythology, and with a large hint of Nordic noir added, then that’s a pretty accurate description.

There’s a lot of Pollyanna in Billie, but also a bit of Pippi Longstocking.

Profoundly humane, inviting the young reader to sympathise with the underdog.

What do Emily Dickinson and Marilyn Monroe have in common?

Khemiri is known for his ironically self- referential approach to writing.

This extremely timely book reminds us why people flee their countries and what happens if we let ignorance and intolerance guide our minds and close our hearts.

Over a century later, only the nationalities have changed.

There are many intertextual references, usually to European philosophers, and black-and-white illustrations of paintings, landscapes, and photographs, in the spirit of the German novelist W.G. Sebald.

A slow-burning horror story that weaves magic and gore into an otherwise realistic portrayal of a dystopian Gävle.

These short stories may simply be too frightening – or perhaps unnerving – for some readers.

Though crimes are definitely committed, this is not a conventional crime novel.

What remains from Ray Bradbury’s story is an existential ambivalence about the end of a life, and of the novel itself in the face of inevitability.

Something rotten at the heart of the Finland-Swedish academic and literary establishment.

Now Masha, Tolstoy’s favourite child, comes into focus, completing the Russian triptych.