Translations

Prizewinning novelist Johanna Nilsson rises to the challenge of devising a sequel to Karin Boye’s dystopian classic Kallocain, published in Sweden in 1940.
Translated by Sarah Death

Set in a small village on the Ångerman River in northern Sweden, Therése Söderlind's narrative extends over four centuries in an evocative novel imbued with a strong sense of place.
Translated by Alex Fleming

Teenage mental health issues are treated intelligently and sensitively in this bittersweet
young adult novel, set in Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost mining town.
Translated by Annie Prime

In this extract from Martin Kellerman's first novel, a disenchanted young man's life revolves around collecting his grandmother's pension and growing cannabis in her living room.
Translated by Paul Goldsman

Anni Blomqvist's series of five novels set in the Åland archipelago in the 19th century draws on events in her own family history to depict the harsh reality of life on a small, remote island.
Translated by Kate Lambert

In her YA trilogy about the teenage Turid, Elisabeth Östnäs gives us a tale of a curious, kind and fiercely intelligent young woman who finds herself questioning elements of the society where her father is king.
Translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles.

Carl-Michael Edenborg's novel is the dark tale of a young noblewoman, the last in a line of Manichaean alchemists, whose late father ordered her to destroy the world through alchemy.
Translated by Fiona Graham.

In this debut novel set in the not-too-distant future Alexander Koistinen follows the work of Swedish protagonist Axel Hägerstedt in his work for the EU in Brussels.
Translated by Ian Giles

With his hallmark humour Torgny Lindgren explores the relationship between artists and life.
Translated by Chris Hall

Karin Boye's much-loved poem was first written in 1932.
Translated by David McDuff

Stig Dagerman wrote the poem 'Autumn' ten days before his death in 1954.
Translated by Laurie Thompson

Stina Stoor's prize-winning Beasts is a masterful tale full of dialect, idiolect and a strong sense of place.
Translated by Nichola Smalley

Like Frida Nilsson’s earlier children’s books, August-Prize nominated Jagger Jagger has exclusion and isolation as its theme.
Translated by Kate Lambert

This novel for young adults by Cilla Naumann is set in Southern Sweden, in a coastal community that fills with city-dwellers every summer. This year it just rains and rains, until they greyness turns black...
Translated by Nichola Smalley

This extract is the opening of an unsettling story from Aino Trosell’s collection of Krimineller (‘Criminelles’, or crime-fiction short stories). ‘Confused’ describes the fate of an undocumented migrant to Sweden.
Translated by Laurie Thompson

'My Friend at Gondolen' is the first of two stories by Jonas Karlsson that formed the basis for the feature film Stockholm Stories, 2013, in which he starred.
Translated by Linda Schenck

In this book Astrid Trotzig takes us back to Korea, the country of her birth, and describes her feelings of ambivalence at being neither Swedish nor Korean.
Translated by Lo Nathamundi

A chapter from the graphic-novel version of Selma Lagerlöf's En herrgårdssägen by Marcus Ivarsson.
Introduced and adapted by Ruth Urbom