\New Swedish Books, spring 2019 1
33 Spring 2019 Fiction and non-fiction awards The
August Prize for fiction The Swedish Publishers’ Association Best Swedish Fiction Book of the Year was awarded to Linnea Axelsson for her epic poem Ædnan (Albert Bonniers förlag). “The loss of the Sami ‘aednan’, the Earth’s rhythm of life, is depicted in the histories of two families, where each generation has had their sense of belonging to a language and a landscape undermined leaving existential rupture”, the jury writes in their statement. The August Prize for non-fiction The August Prize for Best Swedish NonFiction Book of the Year 2018 was awarded to Magnus Västerbro for his text The Famine: The Hunger Years that Shaped Sweden (Albert Bonniers förlag). The jury describes it as follows: “The book is a hardto-put down and engaging story about the famine during the climate crisis in Sweden of 1867–69. It is about how hunger breaks both people and societies down”. Sveriges Radios litteraturpris The winner of the best novel of the year is decided by a jury made up of listeners and in 2018 the literary prize was given to Aleksander Motturi for the novel Brother (Norstedts), “a gentle and honest story, describing suffering and the strength of sibling love”. Sveriges Radios lyrikpris The winner of Sveriges Radios Lyrikpris for the best poetry collection of the year was decided by a jury made up of critics and they chose Gunnar D Hansson’s collection The Tapes Sea (Albert Bonniers förlag) as their 2018 winner. The poems “firmly dig the spade deep into the soil of the Bohuslän landscape to unearth layer upon layer of history, geology, ecology, rural culture and literature”. “ It is about how hunger breaks both people and societies down.” The August Prize jury about Magnus Västerbro's The Famine. Photo: Sara Mac Key Photo: Johanna Hanno Photo: Mai Nestor Photo: Jäger Arén