Swedish fiction in translation

Cover image for Small Comfort by Ia Genberg

Small Comfort by Ia Genberg (Tr. Kira Josefsson): Money, money, money   

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An international bestseller, Ia Genberg’s The Details was one of 2023’s standout reads for me. Published for the first time in English, this year’s International Booker Prize longlisted Small Comfort is an earlier novel, also translated by Kira Joseffson. It has a similar structure, following five characters although this time the link is money rather […]

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Coer image for Bloody Awful in Different Ways by Andrev Walden

Bloody Awful in Different Ways by Andrev Walden (transl. Ian Giles): Seven dads in seven years

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Andrev Walden’s Bloody Awful in Different Ways was a huge bestseller in Sweden, winning the country’s prestigious August Prize in 2023. It’s pitched at readers who loved Frederik Bachman’s A Man Called Ove which didn’t appeal to me but I liked the sound of this slice of autofiction which begins with young Andrev, aged seven

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Cover image for The Divorce by Moa Herngren

The Divorce by Moa Herngren (transl. Alice Menzies): Two sides of the story

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Perhaps because I’m in one, I’m attracted to fiction about long relationships which are as different from each other as the couples involved. I included a post in my Five Books I’ve Read series and could probably write several more on the theme. Acclaimed Swedish writer Moa Herngren’s The Divorce explores the end of a

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Cover image for Malma Station by Alex Schulman

Malma Station by Alex Schulman (transl. Rachel Willson-Broyles) ‘You are never alone’

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The blurb for Alex Schulman’s Malma Station was so impenetrable I’d have passed it by had I not been so impressed by The Survivors back in 2021. Schulman’s new novel explores similar themes following three journeys to the eponymous station deep in the Swedish countryside, separated by several decades. Often, when her parents fought, she

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Cover image for To Coook a Bear by Mikael Niemi

Five Swedish Novels I’ve Read

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Given how much of my viewing time has been spent there thanks to Walter Presents, you’d think I’d have read more Scandinavian fiction but perhaps it’s because so much of the translated variety is crime related. Below are five striking Swedish novels I’ve read, all with links to my reviews, beginning with an award-winning piece

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Cover image for The Trio by Johanna Hedman

The Trio by Johanna Hedman (transl. Kira Josefsson): If you like Sally Rooney…

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The blurb for Swedish writer Johanna Hedman’s The Trio put me in mind a little of Liza Klaussmann’s slightly disappointing This is Gonna End in Tears which I reviewed last week. Both feature a group of close friends revisited later in life, which is what attracted me, but that’s where the similarity ends. As you’ll

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Cover image for The Survivors by Alex Schulman

The Survivors by Alex Schulman (transl. Rachel Willson-Broyles): ‘Where are my brothers?’

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It was its Swedish setting that attracted me to Alex Schulman’s The Survivors which came my way at a time when I was remembering holidays past, including one taken on the Gothenburg archipelago many years ago. It’s about a family who holiday every year at the same isolated lakeside cottage until, one summer, a dramatic

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Cover image for The Family Clause by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

The Family Clause by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (transl. Alison Menzies): What Larkin said

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Two things drew me to Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s The Family Clause: I’d enjoyed his previous novel, Everything I Don’t Remember, back in 2016, and the blurb sounded tempting with its promise of chaotic and discordant family life. I’d been expecting a fairly straightforward linear narrative but that’s not Khemiri’s style. This everyday tale of a

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