Reviews
Curated and edited by Darcy Hurford
REVIEW
Löpa varg
The Wolf Run, the latest novel by doyenne of Swedish literature, Kerstin Ekman, resonates with a wisdom deeply rooted in nature.
REVIEW
Homo Line
Travelling between Dimension Homesickness and Dimension Viking Line, Edith Hammar's Homo Line is a graphic novel about dislocation, gentrification, and a lesser-known aspect of wartime Helsinki.
REVIEW
Inställd resa till Sabarmati
Bestselling author Majgull Axelsson's new novel, about "a mother who isn't a mother", runs the gamut from thriller to romance and readily retains the reader’s attention throughout.
REVIEW
Samlade dikter 1955-2015
The work of Gösta Ågren holds a special place in Finland-Swedish – and Swedish and Finnish – literature. This collection brings together many of his works from the past 60 years.
REVIEW
Den besvärliga Elin Wägner
Ulrika Knutson's fascinating, vibrant biographical narrative explores the life of Elin Wägner, one of Sweden's most important writers of the early 1900s.
REVIEW
Dubbelporträtt
The most recent work by veteran Swedish author Agneta Pleijel is an engaging novel centring on the real-life meeting in 1969 between Agatha Christie and the Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka
REVIEW
Tullias värld
In Tullias värld, Kerstin Ekman sets out with grace, inventiveness and often anger to shed light on the hidden lives of the women of Ancient Rome.
REVIEW
Övergivenheten
'I was born ready to flee.' Elisabeth Åsbrink's genre-bending book portrays three generations of women against the background of Jewish diaspora history.
REVIEW
Lindormars land
In the middle-grade novel Lindormars land, Frida Nilsson writes about the need and desire for love and about the difficult choices we sometimes have to make.
REVIEW
Nidamörkur
They were once a professional couple living a comfortable, middle-class existence in Stockholm. Now Simon is missing and Jenny is searching for him. In Nidamörkur, Fröberg Idling combines a literary style with horror's ability to depict humanity's dark sides.
REVIEW
Överallt och ingenstans
Överallt och ingenstans is a well-crafted, pleasantly meandering chapter book that brings together the small and big things in life, like cozy Friday nights, lice and complicated friendships.
REVIEW
Nattexpressen
Nattexpressen is an exciting story for children that opens up opportunities for conversations on a hard topic: how to talk about people who have changed or who are no longer themselves.
REVIEW
och när hon får andnöd av sorg måste jag blunda
Kina Nilsson’s lapidary free verse poems, 77 of which are published in this anthology, are a testimony to the dedication of the hospital staff who have borne the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic.
REVIEW
Jag föreslår att vi vaknar
Beate Grimsrud's semi-autobiographical final novel - written in Swedish and self-translated into Norwegian - is an astonishing exploration of what it means for an individual life – ‘a giant dot’ – to be erased.
REVIEW
Svartsvala
Lucia is 26 when she has a brain haemorrhage and is left with an impaired capacity to remember anything short-term. Josefin Roos' powerful novel draws on her own real-life experience to explore the complex terrain of brain damage.
REVIEW
Där solen aldrig går ned
Journalist Henrik Brandão Jönsson's fourth book is a short history of the Lusophone world that brings together several of the key Portuguese-speaking nations in one volume, providing insight into parts of the world readers may know little to nothing about.
REVIEW
Översten
Ola Larsmo's novel tells the story of Knut Oscar Broady, a Swedish emigrant whose life placed him in the midst of a number of crucial moments in both Swedish and American history.
REVIEW
Apan i mitten
This standalone sequel to Tre apor (Three Monkeys) clearly depicts the tension between staying with one’s own kind versus assimilation, and the challenges that come with belonging to various different groups.