Reviews

Mikael Niemi's take on the YA novel is full of humour, often black.

Peter Törnqvist's first novel is an intellectual and urban work speculating upon the world from oblique and baroque angles.

Sigrid Combüchen has finally won the prestigious August Prize for this cleverly composed work delving into the details of a ladies’ novel without plunging into the chicklit category.

Niklas Ekdal, like Stieg Larsson, has a background in journalism; and, like Larsson, he uses the thriller genre to criticise aspects of Sweden’s recent history.

A quote from Henrik Berggren explains the drive behind this biography: ‘Checking the newspaper cuttings about Palme, I realised I had found a source referring to much of the history of the twentieth century.’

Finland-Swedish writer Susanne Ringell’s collection of short stories provide tantalising glimpses into hidden lives, as when glinting fish dart by.

Sara Stridsberg's novel engages in an interesting way with its source material: Nabokov's Dolores Haze (Lolita).

Björn Larsson's satire on the Scandinavian crime fiction wave abounds with meta-fictional allusions.

A collection of essays on Strinberg edited by Lena Einhorn.

The second instalment in Alexander Ahndoril’s planned trilogy of novels based loosely on the lives of three living Swedes.

The third in Johan Theorin’s quartet of novels set on the island of Öland.

Håkan Nesser’s crime novels featuring detective Van Veeteren have been translated into English. The stories about his latest detective, Gunnar Barbarotti, should be on the bookshelf of every English-speaking crime fiction fan.

The tradition of Swedish worker literature is currently in revival; Maria Hamberg's novel continues that revival.

It is difficult to read Maja Lundgren’s new novel without being strongly aroused by it.

Lars Kepler's novel is an exercise in political analysis – national and international bureaucracies, treaties and alliances – and classical music theory.

Stig Dagerman's novel provides a brilliant depiction of the suffering, devastation and moral vacuum in war-ravaged Germany.

The most recent in a sequence of enigmatic, monographic novels by Magnus Florin.

For all the gore, John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel transcends the formulaic boundaries of horror fiction to probe at the interaction of exclusion, powerlessness and violence.