2024:1
Featuring works by Kerstin Ekman, Magnus Florin, Aya Kanbar, Lisa Röstlund, Elin Wägner, Mikael Yvesand and more.
Editor: Alex Fleming
Reviews Editor: Darcy Hurford
Advisory Editors: Deborah Bragan-Turner, Sarah Death, Fiona Graham, Paul Norlen and Linda Schenck
Social Media: Sophie Ruthven
New Books: Alice E Olsson
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash.
Welcome to this latest issue of Swedish Book Review, and a new crop of works that all deal with topics central to our humanity. Through settings that range from ancient forests to ships’ decks, city streets to magic mountains, these texts explore love, nostalgia and loss, how we interrogate philosophy and faith, and how we interact with nature, with culture, and with each other.
In translations, we present two works that evoke very different stages of childhood: Mikael Yvesand’s Hang City distils the dreaminess of long, languorous summers and the boredom of the pre-Internet age, while Aya Kanbar’s volcanic second collection of poetry Evening Street offers a heady and romantic ode to the teenage years.
Elsewhere in fiction, Magnus Florin reimagines philosopher René Descartes’ last voyage in the masterful Descartes’ Daughter, and celebrated journalist, author and activist Elin Wägner explores faith, superstition and evolving social mores in her previously untranslated 1931 short story ‘Old Wives' Meeting’.
In non-fiction, Lisa Röstlund’s incisive and wide-ranging Forestland shines a light on the at times devastating environmental impact of modern forestry practices, while in My Book World Kerstin Ekman enters into a dialogue with her own literary heroes, sharing insights gleaned from a lifetime of reading.
In features, Anna Maria Hellberg Moberg delves into the changing landscape of folk tales and the resurgence of storytelling traditions across Sweden, and in an illuminating interview Saskia Vogel shares some of her experiences of translating Johanne Lykke Holm’s Bernard-Shaw-Prize-winning Strega.
As ever, our reviews section highlights the breadth and depth of publishing in Sweden today, full of popular and prize-winning new releases in everything from fiction to biographies by established favourites and emerging voices alike. We also present the ever-important data on Swedish and Finland-Swedish books to be published in English translation in 2024.
We would like extend our sincere thanks to Swedish Literature Exchange for their support in producing this issue. We hope that you enjoy reading it.
Translations
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from My Book World by Kerstin Ekman
One of the most prominent voices in twentieth and twenty-first century Swedish literature, Kerstin Ekman enters into dialogue with her own literary heroes, detailing the works that have influenced her own reading and writing life.
Translated by Linda Schenck.
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Descartes’ Daughter by Magnus Florin
Magnus Florin's latest novel plays out during the philosopher René Descartes’ last journey, a month-long voyage from Holland to Stockholm in the autumn of 1649.
Translated by Harry D. Watson.
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Evening Street by Aya Kanbar
In her explosive second poetry collection, Aya Kanbar offers a heady, romantic and often dark exploration of love, loneliness, destruction and the search for identity.
Translated by Elizabeth Clark Wessel.
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Forestland. An Investigation. by Lisa Röstlund
Lisa Röstlund, an experienced, award-winning journalist, has spent years investigating concerns about modern forest management. The many lines of thought and inquiry in her largest, most complicated, and politically charged story all come together in Forestland.
Translated by Anna Paterson.
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
Old Wives' Meeting by Elin Wägner
In this short story, a disagreement between a clergyman and his wife in a rural parish serves as a prelude to an incisive exploration of the clashes that inevitably occur between tradition and innovation, faith, superstition and reason.
Translated by Sarah Death.
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Hang City by Mikael Yvesand
In his debut novel, which won the 2023 Borås Tidning's Debut Prize, Yvesand has perfectly captured the dreaminess not only of bright, long summers but also the voice and energy of a thirteen-year-old.
Translated by Sophie Ruthven.
Features
FEATURE
Swedish Folk Tales – An Evolving Tradition
Anna Maria Hellberg Moberg delves into the changing landscape of folk tales and storytelling traditions across Sweden.
INTERVIEW
‘There’s nothing like the act of translation to reveal the magic of how and why a piece of writing gets under your skin.’
Fresh from her Bernard Shaw Prize win for her translation of Johanne Lykke Holm's Strega, Saskia Vogel speaks to SBR about her luminous translation and stretching the limits of the English language.
Reviews
curated and edited by Darcy Hurford
Fiction
REVIEW
Moral
If you partake in something you know is wrong and later write about it, can any value be extracted from the prose? Or is it simply wrong? August Prize-nominated Morality by Lyra Ekström Lindbäck unfolds like a thesis centred on this and other philosophical questions.
REVIEW
Fjollornas fest
In Sissy, Jonas Gardell writes another collective literary testimony from Stockholm’s gay community. This time, the sissies – said to be the most despised even by the gay community – take centre stage.
REVIEW
Systrarna
Acclaimed author Jonas Hassen Khemiri returns with The Sisters, a novel that balances expertly on the line between past and present, Sweden and America, reality and fiction.
REVIEW
Stacken
In Annika Norlin’s debut novel The Ant Hill, An alternative lifestyle brings rewards and challenges for a group of people who reject mainstream society.
REVIEW
D e kroniskt
Under the piercing, watchful eye of the main character Anne in Carolina Ringskog Ferrada-Noli’s wildly entertaining and, at the same time, crushing novel It Is Chronic, the ways of today’s (western) world are picked apart and observed through the lens of pain.
REVIEW
Satansviskningar
What is evil, and how does it relate to who we are? Is the desert the setting of Sami Said's thematically heavy, yet lyrically light novel, or is it the emotional world itself? There is life in every corner, but is the desert chiefly pregnant with miracles, or evil?
REVIEW
Själens telegraf
Does honesty matter? In Soul’s Telegraph, Amanda Svensson explores the painful legacy of a mother who can’t – or won’t – tell the truth.
REVIEW
En bra plats i skallen
The phrase: ‘sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll’, can be used to describe many works of fiction and non-fiction written on the subject of popular music in the last 60 or so years. Marcus Berggren’s book, A Good Place in the Brain, is certainly one of these, and to which can be added the phrase, ‘with a wry sense of humour.’
REVIEW
Höken sjunger om död
Murder in academia: The Hawk Sings of Death is a literary crime novel set at Uppsala University by an author based there.
Graphic novels
REVIEW
Portal
Edith Hammar's Portal is a queer graphic novel about finding community and being seen.
REVIEW
Den ömma modern
Karin Nordin Stensö's The Tender Mother is a graphic memoir about becoming a mother and struggling with the reality of it, as compared to the way it is depicted in art.
REVIEW
Fattigt Skryt
With its appealingly coloured tales of a group of twenty-something friends that shun strict realism for a more psychological take, Cecilia Vårhed’s graphic novel Empty Boasting has fun with the genre.
Fiction for children and teenagers
REVIEW
Hjärtat i källaren
What would you do if you found a beating beetroot heart in the basement? Micaela Favilla’s The Heart in the Cellar offers one possibility.
REVIEW
Onsdagar på badhuset
Alma Thörn’s children’s book Wednesdays at the Swimming Pool is a lavishly illustrated and irresistibly empathetic tale of what it feels like to struggle with anxiety.
Poetry
REVIEW
Omsorgslabyrinten
A curator’s eye tour of an art museum, The Maintenance Labyrinth, Ida Börjel’s dialogue in poem form is narrated with an eye for the details of objects and their conservation, as well as subtle humour.
REVIEW
Onkalo
In his award-winning poetry collection, Onkalo, Victor von Hellens depicts the solitary existence of an isolated individual in a post-apocalyptic Finland.
Non-fiction
REVIEW
Skotten i Slovakien. En centraleuropeisk tragedi
Whatever happened to memory in the former dictatorships of Central Europe? Shots in Slovakia: A Central European Tragedy highlights the shortcomings in remembrance culture that continue to hold these societies back.
REVIEW
Slavdrivaren
Enforcers of unfree labour are victims and perpetrators: in The Slavedriver, Anders Teglund combines reportage and historical essays to examine that grim paradox.
REVIEW
Mitt stora vackra hat. En biografi över Victoria Benedictsson.
Elisabeth Åsbrink's My Big, Beautiful Hatred portrays a gifted writer torn apart by the conflicting demands that late nineteenth-century society placed on female authors and intellectuals.
REVIEW
Himlen nära. Stig Dagerman och Anita Björk.
Heaven is Near is an exploration of the art, love and enduring legacies of Swedish writer Stig Dagerman and actress Anita Björk, written by their daughter, Lo Dagerman
Generously supported by Swedish Literature Exchange, part of the Swedish Arts Council.
