New Swedish Titles 2000

original 00-11-0710.22Sida1 New Swedish Titles 2000 Titles Swedish New THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE THE SWEDISH Pernilla Stalfelt Bo R Holmberg Mirja Unge Annika Thor Christine Falkenland Mats Wahl Moni Nilsson-Brännström Ann-Marie Ljungberg Lars Gustafsson Peter Kihlgård Hans Olsson Mikael Niemi original 00-11-07 10.22 Sida 2 The Swedish Institute To read literature solely as though it were a mirror of society and its interpreters would be a precarious business, as Ingrid Elam points out at the beginning of her article on new Swedish prose. On the other hand, Kajsa Lindsten Öberg demonstrates that literature, be it for adults or for children, is not entirely uninfluenced by current affairs. Mirror or not, the following two articles about recent Swedish titles identify themes connected with public debate, but also include some exposing testimonies about the most private sphere. There is a mounting international interest in Swedish literature. Swedish books are found on bestseller and “critics’ choice” charts all over the world, and the publication of translations is no longer limited to a handful of specialist publishers. Bidding for titles occurs more and more often, even for translations of previously unpublished writers. Ingrid Elam and Kajsa Lindsten Öberg have been requested to com- ment on this year’s published books for the Frankfurt Book Fair 2000. The selection of titles and the opinions are entirely their own. The com- ments are usually short but will hopefully encourage further reading. For more information about the authors, we refer you to each respective publisher. Information about funding of translations can be obtained from the Swedish Institute. Helen Sigeland / The Swedish Institute original 00-11-07 10.22 Sida 3 New Swedish Fiction by Ingrid Elam f literature were a mirror-like reality. In other words, this literature On the whole, younger women writers I reflection of reality, then the portrays its own time in a warped mirror, favour setting their stories in the margins of women writers who emerged in where certain features are grotesquely enlar- the welfare state, just outside the big city in the final years of the 20th century must have ged and emphasised, at the expense of which one of this spring’s new male writers, grown up under exceptionally atrocious con- others. In this year’s literary mirror, we can CLAES CARLSSON, lets his drug addicts, ditions, since practically every novel is about conclude that the family is still in a crisis, procurers and forlorn young people move to young girls being exposed to physical vio- and that the welfare state is rather under the the beat of Smashing Pumpkins or Human lence, incest, sadistic sexuality and bullying. weather too. Where Unge’s first book League and conjure up intrigues inspired by The atmosphere can only be characterised portrayed a home that was a virtual minefi- soap operas. Lång fin blond (Tall Fine as one of powerlessness, and the perspective eld, where the casual remark could trigger a Blonde) is the title of his novel. PETER LUCAS was strictly personal, not to say private: The catastrophe, her new book is a biting report ERIXON, who has published several novels young female prose writer looked inwards, at from the small-town football stands and and volumes of poetry, also uses the city as her own self, or possibly at her immediate fast-food counters, a hotbed for racism and the background for his novel Röster och family. violence, partly because so many keep silent brus. The New York Tapes (Voices and Noise. This year, the first of the new millenni- in the face of a bellowing handful. ÅSA The New York Tapes), which reproduces um, several younger writers of fiction are LANTZ’S second book, Splitta nota (Split the material from a tape recorder placed in the opening their doors to the outside world, so Bill), is also about what happens when vio- middle of New York City. many of them that I dare call it a trend. lence and cruelty are met with silence – and ANNE-MARIE LJUNGBERG, on the other MIRJA UNGE made her debut in 1998 what happens to those who dare speak up. hand, follows a few individuals in the geo- with a prize-winning story of growing up Like many contemporary authors, Åsa Lantz graphical and social outskirts of the big city and family life, Det var ur munnarna orden avails herself of the detective story form. in her novel Färjenäs. Färjenäs in Gothenburg kom (The Words Came Out of the Mouths). The book is about a crime that is being inve- is one of those non-places that are found in Her second novel, Järnnätter (Frosty Nights), stigated, but it is equally about the guilt fee- all major cities, near bridge abutments, in is also about a young girl in a harsh envi- lings of the “detective” – a mother – and of the periphery of industrial sites, behind Mirja Unge Åsa Lantz Claes Carlsson ronment, but the narrator is older, on her her suspected son. He has already been con- railway stations or between motorway way out into the social periphery, where victed for murder, is in prison and refuses to ramps. Here, water and electricity have been language is rough and impoverished, where speak. She questions her past as a socially cut off and windows and doorways boarded dark-skinned girls with immigrant back- critical and revealing artist, and therein up. This is the abode of the unemployed and grounds are called Turkish whores, where finds the cause of her son’s fate. the homeless, those who are not sure where the unemployed squander their days on The moral issues (the children of the they are headed, and where nature can sud- booze and white-supremacy music. In 1968 generation are consumed by their denly break through the concrete, and the 3 Unge’s world, as in the world of many parents’ rebellion?) is perhaps not described lifestyle of former times can take over. young writers, unemployment, homeless- with sufficient analytical depth, but it puts Ljungberg’s narrative voice is adjusted to the ness, divorce and stepfamilies are more the old slogan of the personal being political subject: slowly and meticulously she relates common than in statistically measurable in a new, younger perspective. small events in the grey everyday existence THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE original 00-11-07 10.22 Sida 4 Cecilia Bornäs Mikael Niemi Lars Gyllensten that is whiled away with gaming, conversa- tion that makes it a pleasure to read while and on Earth). This year, in a novel, Min son tion and the hunt for a hot meal. reminding us of the melancholy fact that fäktas mot världen, (My Son Wrestles with This spring, CECILIA BORNÄS published one of Sweden’s most well-beloved narrators the World), he mingles fiction with reality. A her first novel, which deals with being an died this year. story about two fathers and their sons in a outsider on a veritably allegorical level. The Novels about childhood and growing up village in southern Sweden is interlaced narrator in Jag Jane (Me Jane) is none other constitute a vital literary sub-category with the story of Ranelid and his son, as it than Tarzan’s Jane, who looks back on a long throughout Europe, but the question is emerges out of some correspondence. It is and lonely life among the foreign and whether this is not in fact the most impor- the father who writes to the son about good uncomprehending creatures of the jungle. tant genre in Swedish literature, from and evil, guilt and guiltlessness and other Strindberg to our days. Young writers such opposites that are typical of this consciously »The episodes are burlesque, as Niemi and Unge continue to favour sub- stylistic and lofty writer, who shuns the com- at times grotesque, and ject matter that they are intimate with and monplace and either demonises human profoundly knowledgeable about – what it is beings and the world, or idealises them. encompass everything that like to become an adult – and older writers In his first novel in seven years, Samma a southerner would expect sooner or later choose to look back on their sol som vår (Same Sun as Ours), PER GUNNAR of a story set in northern own lives. This year, several of Sweden’s EVANDER also blends his own history with a most popular and most productive authors fictitious story about a dead grandfather’s Sweden: churchgoing, sauna, have written autobiographical novels or a longing. deluges of alcohol and abys- mixture of novel and autobiography. LARS A more provocative exploitation of the GYLLENSTEN, who in protest left his seat in individual self is found in CARINA RYDBERG’S mal silences.« the Swedish Academy, came out with Minnen, writings. When her previous novel, Den The greatest narrative zest in the young- bara minnen (Memories, Just Memories). högsta kasten (The Highest Caste, 1997), was er generation, at least judging by this year’s This is a biography that says very little about published, it generated heated debate about publications, seems to be found in the very the writer Gyllensten, but all the more about art and ethics. The novel portrays the rejec- north of Sweden. The poet MIKAEL NIEMI’S the man. Above all, he settles his accounts ted love of the author for an authentic man, first novel, published this autumn, Populär- with enemies and adversaries in the media and her encounters with other people who musik från Vittula (Popular Music from world, and writer colleagues within and out- are named and/or identifiable to a small cir- Vittula), is a story of growing up in a region side the Academy.

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