Reviews

Saga has just started secondary school when she meets him: the man who is to become her obsession, ‘Stockholm’s most beautiful man’.

This gripping and absorbing account is real Scandinavian crime and deserves the widest possible readership by those who not only take an interest in crime and justice but also enjoy excellent writing and a compelling narrative.

The strength of this first novel set in Lapland is not so much the plot and the whodunit, but rather the account Lars Pettersson weaves around the people eking out a living in this frozen wilderness and their struggle to keep alive local traditions of language and culture.

Where Ovid writes his lament in Latin to and for his friends at the centre of the glittering Empire, Kallifatides writes in his adopted language, holding up a comical mirror to his new fellow-citizens, to whom these letters are really addressed.

The idea of a Swedish disaster story is interesting in itself. The Hollywood output of scare stories is mind-numbing, but something about setting this story in rural Sweden makes it more unsettling than the most imaginative zombie invasion; we expect the Swedish countryside to be safe and uneventful.

Handberg's novel hauntingly describes that strange, becalmed yet activity-filled bubble we inhabit between the death and funeral of a parent.

A companion text to the exhibition of the same name at Bonniers Konsthall.

A collection of Andersson’s reflections on his experiences while translating James Joyce.

A masterly portrayal of small, frightened teenage souls trapped in growing, awkward, sweaty bodies.

The powerful mixture of fantasy and grim social realism works well in this haunting novel.

This book simply had to be reviewed here: not only is this what could quite fairly be described as the definitive book to date on Scandinavian crime fiction in the English language, but it is a work which strongly features the theme of translation itself.

Orrenius is a smart journalist with a keen eye for paradoxes in legal systems and widely held beliefs. He lets people talk freely while he interviews them and, rather than ending an article with his own conclusions, he lets the reader draw their own.

Reality is a manifold concept, but we take it for granted.

New poems, interlaced with older ones – old favourites.

The historical setting of the story is as important as the investigative aspect of it.

The author’s personal and frankly partisan account of a period as a Member of Parliament.

Essays on entomology.

Arra has never spoken a word, but has learnt to recognise and sing all the songs of the trees and the river.