New Swedish Books. Autumn 2016 1
NEW SWEDISH BOOKS The Tempest Steve Sem-Sandberg
is a clearsighted, penetrating observer, narrator and portrayer of contemporary European history. The novel The Tempest is a dark, mysterious tale of lives and memory, with complex political and spiritual depths. The aftershocks of the war and the German occupation are still rolling in across a small island near the Norwegian coast. The narrator comes to the island to seek his past among memories of Nazi sympathisers, peculiar biological experiments and indistinct origins, laying bare old wounds. And people don’t forget. Hate and conflict pass down through the generations. Demons are long-lived. Framed by allusions to Shakespeare’s Tempest, a drama at once dreamlike and realistic plays out, a dream that tells of guilt and of how we can escape the past. Steve Sem-Sandberg THE TEMPEST Albert Bonniers Förlag Rights: Nordin Agency 16 Photo: Fredrik Hjerling