Reviews

Kalle Dixelius offers a modern version of our very oldest stories: a young man living in poor conditions feels a strong inner urge to embark on a dangerous and often life-threatening quest in search of a deeper meaning in life.

Kerstin Ekman’s first-person narrator, a down-at-heel physician, follows up on a chance encounter with the writer Hjalmar Söderberg by providing him with information on potassium cyanide pills as an instrument of death...

Peter Englund’s book shows that there is still much to be said and new perspectives to be taken on the First World War.

Aris Fioretos has written a wry meditation on human identity, loss and longing, and what it is to be Greek.

P.C. Jersild's novel raises questions concerning some of the odder reaches of Swedish life – the ‘back yard of Eden’.

The thoughts of Johan Kling's protagonist in this novel are far less meaningless than the talk of Habitat, house prices and holidays in Portugal which make up the conversations around him.

This bilingual edition fills a gap and introduces readers to Harry Martinson's poetry.

The poet Ulf Karol Olov Nilsson knows the extent of power a word can hold. In this collection, the absurd is juxtaposed with the tragic.

Karolina Ramqvist's gangster girlfriend plays happy homes in a novel highlighting the ease with which women (and men) can slide into a conscience-free virtual reality of glamour and luxury.

Elisabeth Rynell captures the mystical mood of her earlier novels – the wonder of the awe-inspiring scenery, the changing seasons – with the quality of legend.

One of the many triumphs of Steve Sem-Sandberg's narrative is that it shows how the mechanics of persecution operate within a society of the persecuted.

Jerker Virdborg is back, with an engrossing, fast-paced, deeply unsettling dystopian tale.

Kjell Westö is a first-class storyteller and you don’t have to be interested in Finnish history to enjoy his books.

Helena von Zweigbergk is an accomplished storyteller, and the problem of this unfortunate family is compelling.

This novel confirms Majgull Axelsson’s position as one of Sweden’s most interesting and accomplished contemporary storytellers.

Staffan Bruun's novel, bearing on its cover the description ‘Burt Kobbat on the hunt for a missing Beatles tape’, should find a ready market in the English-reading world, and not only among lovers of contemporary crime fiction.

Jonas Gardell’s project to define 'a possible Jesus'.

Tove Jansson’s first ever Moomin comic strip.