New Swedish Books, spring 2017 1
67 Spring 2017 Sofia Nordin (b. 1974) If Only You
Saw Me Now Publisher Rabén & Sjögren info@rabensjogren.se www.rabensjogren.se Rights Koja Agency carin.bacho@kojaagency.com Selected Works Snöstormen (LL-förlaget 2015) Young Adult Easy Reader Harry, Gunnar och rymlingen co-authored with Kajsa Gordan, illustrator Caroline Röstlund (Rabén & Sjögren 2015) Chapter book Atomer (Norstedt 2015) Novel If Only You Saw Me Now A strange fever has killed off most of humanity. The only ones that seem to have made it are a few children and young people, who now have to survive in a society that has completely collapsed. In Sofia Nordin’s post-apocalyptical series, with stand-alone parts, the narrative voice has swapped between teenagers. In the fourth book it’s Emanuel who tells the story. Seven months have passed since almost everyone around him died, and he’s angry. Angry with the fever, angry with his grief, and angry with Ella, who after all is alive, but who has just upped and left. So he decides to go after her. On a bicycle, through an empty landscape, towards Umeå in the North and Ella, who he might have a crush on. If Only You Saw Me Now is simultaneously very close and extremely far from an ordinary teenager’s everyday and emotional life. Sofia Nordin has dropped fever and death like a bomb right in the middle of a contemporary, realistically depicted Swedish society. The result is a critically acclaimed series of multi-layered relationship novels set after the disaster. It’s thrilling without being action-packed, and it is extremely captivating reading.