\New Swedish Books, spring 2019 1
37 Spring 2019 Looking back can help us envision
the future Moa Matthis, member of the Swedish Writer's Union non-fiction section Minerva, reflects on trends in contemporary Swedish non-fiction and its interest in history and nature. If the role of fiction is to invent the world anew, non-fiction is often about assembling fragments of the past to get a clearer view of the present, and perhaps the future too. How and why did we end up where we are? Almost two decades into the 21st century, the time has come to review the preceding one, and a number of books have risen to the challenge. This is certainly no easy task, given that the 20th century in Sweden has been written as the success story of a destitute nation doggedly reforming itself into a welfare state and beacon of modernity. It is all too easy to become blindly nostalgic or caustically iconoclastic, especially as ” The time has come to review the 20th century and a number of books have risen to the challenge.“ both extremes are well represented on social media and used as weapons in political debates. However, this is not the case with well-researched and well-written nonfiction. The retrospective image of Sweden that arises through mining the archives is cause neither for celebration nor indignation, but rather for thought. Whether in the form of biography, such as Jens Liljestrand’s justifiably acclaimed book on author Vilhelm Moberg, The Man in the Woods, or in the form of a meticulous study of a single year through the lens of letters, newspaper clippings and official documents, such as Henrik Berggren’s aptly titled The Country on the Outside, 20th-century Sweden appears as something of an enigma. Sweden prides itself on having a culture based on consensus and the collective good. However, further investigation reveals that it is in fact a persistent streak of low-key but stubborn individualism and a somewhat haughty self-sufficiency that shapes 20th-century Sweden, both at the political and personal level. Perhaps Magnus Västerbro’s The Famine, winner of the Augustpriset for nonfiction in 2018, goes some way towards explaining this national trait. Focusing on the successive famines that struck Sweden in 1867–69, his exposé of grim poverty serves as a reminder that this is a country at the very border of the world’s arable lands, and at the mercy of natural forces. This knowledge had a profound effect on the 20th century, and re-surfaces in a number of recent non-fiction books by seasoned authors, exploring nature as a source of wonder, such as Kerstin Ekman’s Gubba’s Meadow, or a cause for fear, as in Lars Berge’s The Wolf Attack. Sweden’s awareness of its precarious position may not be necessarily conducive to a cheerful disposition – as Ingmar Bergman, whose centenary was duly celebrated in 2018, not least by way of books, reminds us. However, it may go some way to explaining the wealth of selfimprovement books that cater to readers hellbent on improving not the world, but themselves. Through diets and exercise, it is as though people are preparing for the unexpected. This may also account for the success of cookbooks that rediscover the art of turning the seemingly meagre sustenance of Sweden’s forests into delicious, eco-friendly meals. Perhaps the moss, shoots and herbs which the 20th century were keen to reject herald the future of sustainability.