Swedish Literature

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Liam

Thanks for this, Flower!!! Very interesting--too bad the latest biography of Brahe is only available in Swedish. Can you believe the king gave him an entire ISLAND as a reward for his services?

[The island of Ven]:

Thanks for the tip, Harry. Funny--I just saw a bunch of his books at the store yesterday. The third one is about Newton, I think...






Cheers,
L

You are welcome!

Yes I know about the island but havent been there...

[Eric]

Brahe had a town named after him. Anyone know which?

[Johan]

No idea, but I do know that he had a silver nose and a pet moose.

[Eric]

I didn't know those details, Johan. He must have drank and duelled a lot. The elk story is very inebriate.

I was thinking of Brahestad, named after him. Have you never wondered why the Scanian flag is almost identical to the unofficial Finland-Swedish one?

The unofficial Finland-Swedish one:



The Scanian one:



Only the proportions of the sides differ.

[Eric]

This is the state Swedish literature has got to in the British mind:

Swedish man cleared of murder after evidence points to drunken elk - Times Online

The relevant quote says:

Sweden is the land of the cult detective novel,...

Only nine words, but it speaks volumes about the way Sweden has been turned into the source of all crime literature...

[Johan]

Sadly it is also how most Swedes view our literature. If developments proceed at their current pace non-crime fiction will be completely exiled from bookstores in the next 15 or 20 years.

[Eric]

Mind you, Johan, Sweden has a large stock of half-forgotten 20th century literature. If Akademibokhandeln and others stopped selling non-crime novels for a decade, people could do a bit of catching up, via the libraries.

And remember: Söderbokhandeln still exists in Stockholm, where they sell real books. I wonder if Gothenburg still has that nice bookshop near the market hall. Also in Stockholm: Hedengrens. The Swedes have not yet gone all supine to book commercialism. But if the publishers don't supply the bookshops, a crisis will ensue. Then Sweden can have a huge debatt, and nothing will change.

Incidentally, what happened to that big Manifesto debate that started with such spirit? Have they all given up?

[Johan]

I only buy pens and notebooks at Akademibokhandeln these days.

I know which shop you mean, and sadly it has gone down the drain quite recently. About two thirds of it has been occupied by a clothing store, and the remaining part is selling coffeetable books and (new) novels with glossy covers and the authors name in raised gold letters. New owner I suspect.

There are still about a dozen very good antiquarians left though.

I have not read anything about the manifesto, at least not in Dagens Nyheter's culture section. Maybe it's in the debate section, which I don't read for health reasons.

[Eric]

Johan, regarding that Gothenburg bookshop, I think it was somehow connected with the Ellerströms publishing house some twenty years ago, and was rather chic, as Hedengrens in Stockholm still is, and indeed LundeQ is in Uppsala.

I agree that Akademibokhandeln in Stockholm is a bit like a stationery shop, but I did see Jörn Donner giving a talk in the main branch back in October. and bought a theme issue of 00-tal, about Finland-Swedish literature there.

Second-hand bookshops (antikvariat in Swedish) in Stockholm are some of my favourite haunts. Rönnells (it's maybe changed its name) near Stureplan, Alfa just off Drottninggatan, and Ryös on Kungsholmen are good, serious ones. I'm old enough to remember the eccentric Bok-Viktor in Uppsala during the 1980s, and his second-hand bookshop full of enormous dusty stacks of books; also Röda Rummet, which I think still exists. But I don't know any good second-hand bookshops in Gothenburg or Lund, Växjö or Örebro. Visby only has a tiny one, open two-three days a week.

[Varis]

I have a problem with one Swedish writer. I can't remember his name. You seem to know a lot about that area's literature. Maybe You could point me in the right direction?
This writer I suppose wrote in the first part of 20th century. Maybe after second world war, too. He wrote a lot about Lapland (Finland's part). He travelled through Finnish Lapland a lot himself. He very liked nature, certainly, and humans coping with wild and lonely life of North.
He wrote about river pearl mussel extinction in Sweden in one story. In other one he wrote about tough Norwegian fisher woman. In other one about Saami man who worked on fire watch tower in tundra and had a pet raven he called Rita. (At the end of story the man looses his mind and kills the bird). In other story a Saami guy finds a very precious gem on the bank of a river, but by the time he goes to rent the sector of river bank to make his find legal, the gem disappears. The Saami guy becames crazy trying to find this precious stone, until many years later he founds out that somebody must have taken it and sold it. After that Saami guy becomes normal again.

Sorry for such erratic description, but that's all I can recall. I have tried looking on every single Swedish writer, but still I could not find him yet.
Maybe You have come across this writer? Thanks! Varis

[Eric]

Sweden's still full of fun:

Bonniers godtar Marklunds förklaring | Kulturnyheter | SvD

Sweden's not even finished thrashing out the very non-literary spat over Stieg Larsson's millions. Now there's already another non-literary story jostling for position. Two Swedish authors bitching about plagiarism, then kissing and making up.

When are Swedes going to write a few more books, instead of running a media circus?

[hdw]

Originally Posted by Varis

I have a problem with one Swedish writer. I can't remember his name. You seem to know a lot about that area's literature. Maybe You could point me in the right direction?
This writer I suppose wrote in the first part of 20th century. Maybe after second world war, too. He wrote a lot about Lapland (Finland's part). He travelled through Finnish Lapland a lot himself. He very liked nature, certainly, and humans coping with wild and lonely life of North.
He wrote about river pearl mussel extinction in Sweden in one story. In other one he wrote about tough Norwegian fisher woman. In other one about Saami man who worked on fire watch tower in tundra and had a pet raven he called Rita. (At the end of story the man looses his mind and kills the bird). In other story a Saami guy finds a very precious gem on the bank of a river, but by the time he goes to rent the sector of river bank to make his find legal, the gem disappears. The Saami guy becames crazy trying to find this precious stone, until many years later he founds out that somebody must have taken it and sold it. After that Saami guy becomes normal again.

Sorry for such erratic description, but that's all I can recall. I have tried looking on every single Swedish writer, but still I could not find him yet.
Maybe You have come across this writer? Thanks! Varis

Sveiki, sveiki, Varis! Esiet sveicināti World Literature Forumā!

Are you sure the writer you are thinking of wasn't Finnish? Many Swedish writers have written about the far north, e.g. Eyvind Johnson, Sara Lidman, Per Olov Enquist, but the stories you mention don't sound familiar to me.

Laimīgi!

Harry

[Eric]

Sveiks, Varis.

Like Harry, I'm puzzled at your description. This could have been the Finland-Swede Zacharias (or Zachris) Topelius. But I'm not at all sure, because Topelius is a 19th century author. But Topelius is one of the most likely authors; he wrote in Swedish but lived in Finland. And he evidently fell in love with northwestern Lapland.

Maybe 1/4 Satori has a book of his stories in Latvian translation...

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Varis

I have a problem with one Swedish writer. I can't remember his name. You seem to know a lot about that area's literature. Maybe You could point me in the right direction?
This writer I suppose wrote in the first part of 20th century. Maybe after second world war, too. He wrote a lot about Lapland (Finland's part). He travelled through Finnish Lapland a lot himself. He very liked nature, certainly, and humans coping with wild and lonely life of North.
He wrote about river pearl mussel extinction in Sweden in one story. In other one he wrote about tough Norwegian fisher woman. In other one about Saami man who worked on fire watch tower in tundra and had a pet raven he called Rita. (At the end of story the man looses his mind and kills the bird). In other story a Saami guy finds a very precious gem on the bank of a river, but by the time he goes to rent the sector of river bank to make his find legal, the gem disappears. The Saami guy becames crazy trying to find this precious stone, until many years later he founds out that somebody must have taken it and sold it. After that Saami guy becomes normal again.

Sorry for such erratic description, but that's all I can recall. I have tried looking on every single Swedish writer, but still I could not find him yet.
Maybe You have come across this writer? Thanks! Varis

This bit about having a raven called Rita seems familiar to me...but I cannot come up with some author...are you sure it was not some kind of fairytales?

[Ziggurat]

The writer Varis refers to could be the (Finnish) Timo K Mukka, a superb writer. I don't really recognize the details though, so it might not be.

A glaring omission in this thread is Stig Dagerman. "Bröllopsbesvär" is great, as are many of his other writings.

Thomas Tranströmer and Gunnar Ekelöf were good poets.

Willy Kyrklund, Peter Nilson, and Lars Gustafsson are interesting and a bit quirky.

[hdw]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

A glaring omission in this thread is Stig Dagerman. "Bröllopsbesvär" is great, as are many of his other writings.

Click on Swedish literature under Tags at the top of the screen and you will find a Stig Dagerman thread started by Björn on 16-Sep-2009.

Harry

[Bjorn]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Willy Kyrklund, Peter Nilson

Oh yes, on both counts. Nilson is a favourite, though I must admit that I haven't read a lot of his "straight" fiction; but his semi-non-fiction works on philosophy/astronomy/physics are among the best things I've read.

Dagerman is getting reprinted this year, about time.

[Eric]

With regard to to Varis' query, Ziggurat may be right about Mukka. Unfortunately, I can't find any detailed descriptions of Mukka's stories on the internet, such as for instance from "The Death of a Dog" (Koiran kuolema) which is one of his story collections. I've looked at a few Finnish-language webpages, but no luck so far.

As for Ekelöf, his poems were published years ago in a Penguin translation. Whether more of his poems have appeared in English in recent years I do not know.

[Johan]

Eric, you may or may not be aware of this recently published massive collection of Swedish and Finnish-Swedish poetry. On CD, read by various actors and packaged in a nice box. I belong to the minority who believe that poetry should be read, not heard, but even I am slightly tempted.

Dikt 1593-1939 : svensk och finlandssvensk lyrik i uppläsning av svenska och finlandssvenska skådespelare (9789185849352) av Stina Ekblad ,Jan Dolata - Bokus bokhandel

[Johan]

Originally Posted by Bjorn

Oh yes, on both counts. Nilson is a favourite, though I must admit that I haven't read a lot of his "straight" fiction; but his semi-non-fiction works on philosophy/astronomy/physics are among the best things I've read.

Dagerman is getting reprinted this year, about time.

Out of idle curiosity I did a quick search at the major online books stores, it appears that only one of Kyrklund's works is currently in print: Polyfem Förvandlad.

There should be a special tribunal in The Hague for criminally negligent publishers.