New Swedish Books. Autumn 2016 1
AUTUMN 2016 Nina Björk THE RED DREAM Wahlström &
Widstrand Rights: Bonnier Rights The Red Dream Rosa Luxemburg was an early figure in socialism and the workers’ movement. She was a visionary, longing for a new economic and social order. She was born in 1871 and murdered in 1919. She was an activist, a practitioner and a theorist, and fell victim to the violent backlashes of political struggle. Nina Björk’s biography of Rosa Luxemburg, The Red Dream, is written with great lucidity, from a strongly-felt empathy for notions of 25 universalism, egalitarianism and siblinghood. Rosa Luxemburg’s time, with its violence and utopianism, with its dreams and their collapse, is brought back to life. Those trying to understand something of our contemporary movements and contradictions will find in Nina Björk’s book much potential for explanation. To understand our current time, we should always look to our history. Photo: Stina Nylén