New Swedish Books, Spring 2018 1
25 Spring 2018 A Bloody Beam of Sunshine In Swedi
sh, the verb “to wallraff” has entered the language, inspired by the German journalist Günter Wallraff, who in the 1970s went undercover using different identities to uncover social injustice. After reading the author and journalist Fatima Bremmer’s book on the reporter and feminist Ester Blenda Nordström (1891–1948), you realise that the verb should really have been “to blenda”. Because that was exactly what Nordström did when she went, in 1914, to work as a maid on a farm, revealing the inhumane working conditions in her book of reportage A Maid Among Maids. It became a bestseller and laid the ground for new, more humane, more equitable legislation. Bremmer’s book – a lively portrait of a tough pioneer – has had major success since winning the August Prize, Sweden’s biggest domestic literary prize, in 2017. Fatima Bremmer (b. 1977) A Bloody Beam of Sunshine. A biography of Ester Blenda Nordström Publisher Forum www.forum.se Works De sista tanterna. Från husmor till modeikon (with photos by Magnus Wennman) 2011 Rights Forum adam.dahlin@forum.se Literary Prizes The August Prize for Non-Fiction 2017 Photo: Helén Karlsson